Third Time's the Charm
by apriiil
Summary: Being divorced is hard for them. It's even harder since there's a kid involved, but that's not even really taking into account the fact that they're both still in love with each other. [Modern!AU]
1. habits

"Come on, Jace. Your dad's going to be here any minute now," Lucy said as she pulled the baking tray out of the oven and put it on the rack. "Go and get your things ready, please."

"I don't wanna go," the fourteen-year-old sprawled out on the comfy lounge muttered.

Lucy sighed and shook her head. Sometimes all she wanted to do was strangle the kid just because he could be so difficult – especially so since he'd officially reached his teenage years – but she couldn't ever do that. It was tempting, yes, but he was still her baby boy and she loved him.

Well, sometimes.

He seemed to hate her, though, but he hated his father even more for whatever reason. Neither seemed to be able to quite understand it, especially those days, but the parent-loathing and stubbornness had most definitely started around the time they'd gotten divorced just two years earlier. They'd tried to make it as easy as possible for Jace though, because they knew it hadn't exactly been easy for him to be kind of caught in the middle of it.

They'd let him live with Lucy in the brownstone apartment in the city that they'd called home for so long, and so Jace only had Friday nights and the weekend with his father. They'd let him have pretty much anything he wanted just in case the material things could be what helped _him_ through the split, so when he'd asked for a cat at the very end of the list of things that he now owned two of between the two apartments he called 'home', they bought him a cat – though that he most definitely only had one of, and it stayed with his father because Lucy was allergic to it.

But the material things hadn't stopped Jace from hating them, and he only got worse over the months and the years. He'd been great growing up, always so happy and so loving just like his parents were and had taught him to be, but once he'd hit thirteen, he'd just… changed. And then turning fourteen, which had been nearly a year earlier as it was, had just brought its own world of pain. Lucy was really hoping that once he turned fifteen in December he'd calm down a little, because he'd be a little older and maybe just a little wiser…

Lucy was, of course, pulled from just staring at her teenage son seemingly go on a rampage with bullets and paint the online world in whatever extremely inappropriate game he was playing red when there was a knock on her door. Pulling the oven mitts off and sighing yet again at her son still ignoring her, Lucy pulled the bright-red door open and she smiled with evident relief to see her blue-and-black haired (and even at forty-two now, he still hadn't been able to _completely_ say goodbye to the mowhawk, but she still loved it if she had to be perfectly honest) and far too tall ex-husband standing in front of her.

"Yes, thank you!" Lucy said exasperatedly as she let Bickslow in to the _cosy_ two-bedroom apartment. "Please, just come and take him already."

Bickslow couldn't help but chuckle as Lucy went back to the small kitchen and began to transfer the cookies to the cooling rack. He, however, went and stood behind his son and frowned when Jace made no attempt to get up, or even acknowledge his presence with a simple _'hi, Dad.'_ He got nothing. "Hey, kid. You ready to go?" he asked as Jace shot a firework at someone in whatever game he was playing – honestly, it looked like one he played occasionally (if he was bored enough), which was just a little disturbing.

The teenager only rolled his eyes and got up from the lounge with a groan and threw the controller down onto the cushion after switching the T.V. off. "Fine! Jeez…" he muttered.

Bickslow opened his mouth to say something as he watched his messy-haired blond son trudge down the hall and to his bedroom like he was being forced to do something he really hated or something, but closed it when Jace slammed the door behind him, because suddenly Bickslow didn't really know _what_ to say. That was how things had become after they'd gotten a divorce and he'd moved out once he'd found his own place; he didn't even know how to talk to his own son anymore, because everything he did say seemed to be the wrong thing, or it just went completely ignored.

He wanted to believe that it was just because he was teenager and it was all part of his rebellious phase, but… Bickslow didn't think it was. The kid absolutely _hated_ him, and he pretty much had for the last two years. His mother, he got along with (well, sort of). But Bickslow was a different story when it came to Jace, and he just didn't know what to do about it.

So he just sighed and waited for his son to go and get his stuff to spend the weekend with him like he always did, and waited in the kitchen because Lucy had baked macadamia cookies again, and those… Those he practically lived for.

"Hey, don't eat those!" Lucy scolded her ex-husband as he reached for one of the still-warm cookies from the rack.

"You shouldn't have made them then," he chuckled with his mouth slightly full. Honestly, she made the best cookies. It was probably one of the things he missed most about not being with her anymore. Well, apart from the fact he just missed _her_ in general, which sucked – _a lot._ "You know how much I love the macadamia ones, and they're _so_ nice when they're still warm."

Lucy rolled her eyes though her lips curled up into a small smile. So, sure, they were divorced, but they were still friends. They were still _great_ friends, which admittedly probably was making things worse for Jace because they probably _should_ hate each other… But Lucy wasn't capable of hating Bickslow. Hell, she was still trying to stop loving him, but even that, she didn't think she was capable of either and she kind of hated herself for it.

But… They didn't work. They'd tried it once for six months when she'd been finishing getting her bachelor's, and it had failed. And then they'd tried it again six months later and had managed to last an entire fifteen years that time – got married when she was twenty-three and almost done with her master's and then already had a five-month-old by the time she was twenty-four the next year – but they just… stopped working together somewhere along the way. Separating had been the right thing, even if it still kind of sucked for Lucy two years down the track.

"Well, _you_ know that I like to snack when I'm marking, so _don't_ steal my cookies, Charming," she responded just as lightly. She couldn't even care that she used the name she'd been calling him since she'd been twenty-one, and neither did Bickslow. "I have sixty essays to mark on the Second Trade War tonight and over the weekend, and I _need_ my cookies."

"Yeah, yeah… I know you do," he chuckled. He did know, though. She'd been a high school history teacher since she'd finished getting her master's, so Bickslow knew all too well that she liked to snack on sugary treats while marking. He'd lived through nearly fourteen years of late nights for various reasons, countless sugar highs, and hundreds of ' _I need a new red pen and I need it **now** s'_ and that was just _after_ getting married, after all. He only flashed his usual wide, toothy grin at her as he quickly stole another cookie from the rack and straightened up again, and said, "The rest are all yours, baby."

Jace rolled his eyes as he walked back out to the living room, still putting his arm through the sleeve of his coat and carrying his backpack over his other shoulder. "Why can't you two just hate each other like every other normal divorced couple?" he blurted out suddenly.

"Because we've gotta put up with each other for the next three years, so we might as well get along," Bickslow answered.

Well, it wasn't so far from the truth. Things would probably change once Jace turned eighteen. They wouldn't really have that much of a reason to be friends anymore once their son was old enough to go and do his own thing (which Jace had stressed on multiple occasions that he would be doing as soon as he had graduated from high school, which Lucy was adamant on him doing), though it wasn't exactly like they were _trying_ to be friends right then, either. It just came naturally to them, because they'd just known each other for so long and they'd spent almost all of that time actually together.

He couldn't hate Lucy – no, he cared about her too much to be able to do that, and he didn't want to know what it would be like to _not_ be her friend. Even when they couldn't work _together_ anymore, they'd still been friends.

Jace hated it though. He hated all of it. He hated having to be picked up every Friday afternoon after school just to go to his dad's apartment, then picked up again on Sunday to go back to his mum's – where he actually _called_ home, because that was where he'd grown up. He hated having two of everything, too.

He hated having to see his parents get along, too. That was the most annoying. He'd been so mad at them when they'd gotten divorced, even though he'd only been twelve at the time, because he hadn't wanted to be the kid with the broken family like half of his friends were. He hadn't wanted to choose between them, either.

But he did. And he'd chosen his mother, just because she wasn't his father. Lucy was _home_ , and Bickslow wasn't.

It wasn't like he wanted them to get back together though, either. That was the last thing he wanted, just because he hated Bickslow. _Bickslow_ was the reason that his mother had been miserable for such a long time after he'd had moved out, and even now, she still wasn't quite as happy or cheerful as she'd been growing up. She hadn't let anyone else see it, though. She'd always hid how much she was hurting – from her friends and especially Bickslow. But Jace saw it. Jace had _always_ been able to see it, and he'd always known that it was because Bickslow just hadn't been there anymore.

Jace just didn't want him to come back. He didn't want him to come back just to leave again and hurt his mother again in the process, because Jace knew she still loved him. Why, he had absolutely no idea, but he really wished she didn't. He wished she hated him, because then she wouldn't be standing there and be borderline flirting with him like he did with her every time they saw each other. They were _divorced –_ they should be trying to spend as little time as possible talking, not still acting like they were best fucking friends.

The fact that they used _him_ as an excuse for being all chummy and gross drove him insane, too, and the next three years just couldn't come fast enough.

"You know Mum has a new boyfriend, right?" he smirked as he finished grabbing his things to unfortunately spend another weekend with his father. Jace knew he probably shouldn't have told his dad that just because it wasn't exactly any of his business if his mother had started dating again – it was about time, honestly, even though Jace hated that, too – but the look of shock on the man's face made it worth it.

Bickslow looked back to Lucy with raised eyebrows just to see her blushing slightly. "I don't, really," she mumbled. "I just went on a few dates with him, that's all…"

"Oh, right," Bickslow replied just as awkward. Lucy dating was… Well, it was great. _Right?_ It had to be a good thing. Well, for her, mostly, because he wanted her to be happy, but not so much for him. He could still be happy, though. Yeah, he could do that. He could be so totally supportive and be the super awesome ex-husband that is all fine with seeing his ex apparently move on. "Well, uh, am I going to be able to meet this douchebag? I mean"— _yeah, no, I think douchebag works, actually. The guy is probably an epic douchebag—_ "if he's going to be around Jace, I think I should be allowed to, y'know? Since he's my son, too."

"Uh… Yeah, maybe…" If truth be told, Jace probably wasn't even going to get a chance to meet the guy. He was just a co-worker from the school she worked at, and she hadn't even wanted to accept his offer to go on a date in the first place, but as soon as she'd told Levy and Lisanna, they'd practically forced her into going. Dating just… felt weird, now. "But anyway!" she clapped her hands and smiled brightly at her son waiting just by the front door looking like the bored and impatient brat he really was, and then quickly grabbed the tupperware container with some of the freshly baked cookies in it, and then handed it to Jace. "I'm sure your dad would much rather be spending some time with you than standing here."

Jace rolled his eyes and shoved the container into his bag. "Lucky me…"

"Love you too, kid," Bickslow mumbled.

She kissed her son's cheek, as much as he hated it; she couldn't help but be a doting mother because he was her only child. She really was aware of the fact she didn't really treat him like the _nearly_ fifteen-year-old he was, but she couldn't help it. "Now, don't let your dad eat those," she said, following them out into the stairwell. "And don't forget to do your homework, too! And…" Lucy gave up with a sigh when she could see that Jace had already made it down the stairs and was no doubt already waiting by Bickslow's car just outside the brownstone building and in the still chilly spring air. She turned to Bickslow who was peeking out the window in the stairwell and looking down to the teenager who was in fact leaning against his car. "Honestly, feel free not to return him on Sunday."

"No?" he chuckled. "Want me to buy him a one-way ticket somewhere?"

"Yes, probably."

"Will do. You think he'd like somewhere tropical? Or maybe somewhere cold and desolate?"

"Maybe a boat would be better, though," Lucy mused as she hovered by the stairs still, her apartment door still open behind her. "That way he wouldn't have to deal with anyone else."

"Oh, true. That's perfect. Maybe a boat to a deserted island."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "We're _fabulous_ parents."

"Of course we are," Bickslow agreed, and he was smiling as he slowly descended the stairs one step a time. "But we also have a kid who's a fucking nightmare-and-a-half, so, yeah, I think we're allowed to joke about sending him off somewhere just so we don't have to deal with him anymore." It worked for Jace, anyway. He'd still rather be away from the both of them, even if he did love Lucy really, really deep down. Probably. "Fucking angsty little shit he is," Bickslow muttered under his breath.

"I heard that," Lucy shouted from the top of the stairs.

"It's true, though!"

She rolled her eyes once again before she retreated back into the cosy apartment.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, the thirty-minute drive over to Bickslow's apartment in the middle of the bustling city had been painfully silent. It was always like that, and Bickslow was never going to get used to it. His own kid hated him, and he really didn't know what he'd done to deserve it.

After dumping his bags down in his room in the fifteenth floor apartment, Jace picked up the too-fluffy white and tan cat called Cadel and went over to the six-foot aquarium against the black painted wall. His father had always had pet fish, and for as long as Jace could remember, he'd had clownfish. They lived for years, too, so he remembered sitting in the brownstone apartment when he'd been a kid and just watching them swim around in the weird way they did. Even then, he still liked watching them.

As he sat there in his father's apartment that evening though, watching them at nearly fifteen rather than five, he only noticed that there were only four clownfish in the large tank that time. There'd been six at one point in his life, though that one had been older than the others, apparently, and then there'd been five and all Bickslow had done was slowly add other fish to the tank that got along with his prized clownfish – a few purple and yellow, some bright blue, others black, some striped…

There'd always just been lots of bright and colourful little fish in the aquariums.

But there were only four black-orange-and-white clownfish in there, in amongst the other fish. "What happened to the other clownfish?" he asked his father, still not looking to the man who was cleaning up the living area a little behind him.

"Oh. It died," Bickslow answered. He'd had those ones for near a decade anyway, so it wasn't all that surprising.

Jace nodded, and watched the remaining four. They had names, and they were all slightly different with their markings and their colourings, so it was easy enough to tell which one was no longer there if you studied them long enough. And, considering he'd practically grown up with them, and even when his parents had divorced and Bickslow had taken his fish with him and given them a bigger tank in his new apartment, Jace had still watched them each time he got there. "Was it Peppe?"

"Yup."

"Huh."

"Yeah… So uh," Bickslow was still cleaning up some of his mess – mostly just taking it back over to where he kept all of this art stuff and blocks of wood for carving – as he asked, "How's high school so far?"

The teenager shrugged as he left the fish tank and settled himself on the large armchair with the cat still in his arms, and stared out at the daunting skyscrapers just beyond the tall windows that surrounded the entire living space. "Fine, I guess," Jace mumbled.

Really? Was that all Bickslow was going to get? Yes, it was. His son had only started high school a month earlier, and all he was going to get was a _'fine, I guess,'_ because that was all Jace thought he deserved. As much as he knew his son didn't like talking to him, he still tried. He loved the kid, and he'd always loved the kid, even when that kid was a giant ball of fucking problems for him and his mother, was probably going through the same rebellious phase that Satan himself had, _and_ had also been a surprise just after their wedding fifteen-odd years earlier (though a very pleasant surprise). Jace could hate him all he wanted, but at the end of the day, as much as Bickslow wanted to strangle him and ship him off to somewhere else, he loved him. A lot. And he always would.

It was why he still tried to talk to Jace even when he made it so obvious that the last thing he wanted was his father talking to him. He couldn't just give up and just let Jace believe that he was okay with how he got treated. He just couldn't stop trying.

"Well, what subjects are you doing now?" he pressed.

"I don't know…"

"Oh, come on. Of course you do."

Jace shrugged and continued to pet the Ragamuffin cat. His dad tried too hard sometimes, and it was honestly just a little pathetic. "Um, geometry, biology…" he mumbled.

"And how are those going? Are you enjoying them?"

"I suppose so," the teenager mumbled once again. He only turned in his chair to look at his father then, and then asked, completely changing the subject because the last thing he wanted to talk about was school (his mother did enough of that), "Can we have pizza for dinner?"

"Uh, yeah, sure, if you want," Bickslow answered, checking his watch for the time again. "Want me to order it now or do you wanna wait a while?"

"Later. I'm not hungry now."

"Right then. Later it is." And with that, Bickslow could only sigh and just leave his teenage son to do whatever the hell it was he wanted to do. Trying to talk to him right then was futile, even Bickslow knew that, so he just decided to try again later.

* * *

The last time Bickslow checked the time was when he sat down at his workstation against one windowed-wall and picked up a small block of wood he hadn't really known what to do with. It had been midnight then, and Jace had retreated into his room with his cat, and when Bickslow reached for his phone just sitting in amongst all of the wood shavings to check the time again, he wasn't that surprised to find it was a little past three.

He knew he should be asleep, not just because it was three, but because he had to go into work to his store in the morning – he'd opened up a 'small' arts and craft store on Third when he'd been thirty, though by the time he'd turned thirty-five, it had grown into something more than wonderful and awe-inspiring. From a small, old abandoned warehouse in the heart of the downtown district that was an eyesore if anything, to being a place where you could go to learn or even just unwind at the end of a long day. From teaching art classes – painting, sketching, woodworking – to being just a place to buy anything to sate someone's artistic needs, or giving someone the space to do their own thing without being distracted too much. He'd never really intended for it to be anything like that when he'd first wanted to open his own art store, but he couldn't be prouder of it.

But… As late as it was, Bickslow knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, either (almost a bit like the few people that could always be found in his shop, because it was open all day almost every single day of the year just so people could use it as a place to escape. There were still people working, of course). He wanted to, but he couldn't. He had too much on his mind to do that. But where he was usually stuck awake because he was worrying about his son, that wasn't the cause of his insomnia that night. It was Lucy. Again.

Bickslow was only quickly getting up from the leather chair at his desk and dropping the small heart with the rough edges that fit in his palm he'd apparently whittled over the last three hours, and after switching off the desk lamp and leaving his living room illuminated by the never-sleeping city he called home, he was making his way to his bedroom. The wardrobe doors were pulled open and Bickslow was quickly reaching for the box on the top shelf, and with just a single bedside lamp on and the box open on his made bed, Bickslow was then silently going through all of the photos – the _memories_ – from the last twenty years of his life, just because there was no better time than three in the morning to be miserable.

* * *

 **A/Ns:** _Funny story. I started this a while ago. It's another short series (there's only going to be around 7 or 8 chapters and they'll all be between 3-5k words), and I'd actually planned on having this one completely finished before I started uploading it, but... I'm kind of stuck with everything right now and since I have absolutely no idea when the next chapter or story will be written, I figured I'd just start posting this._

 _Anyway. Generic Modern AU, low-key set in some kind of NYC-esque city that doesn't have a name. Lucy is like 39 at this point, Bickslow is 42, Jace is mostly 15 during the course of this story (he's 14 for the first few chapters, but it goes past his birthday since it covers several months). There's more about these versions of my favourites in the next chapter. And yes, I did end this chapter here for a reason. Also this story is angsty as all shit. I'll just say that I made myself ship something I shouldn't have and I'm sad I have to ruin it._

 _Hope you like this so far though, even if the first chapter is kind of just meh._


	2. pictures

The first time Bickslow met Lucy, he'd been twenty-two and dating his – at the time – best friend's, boyfriend's sister (well, one of the sisters,). Lisanna, her name was, and he only knew Lucy _because_ of her (and to that day, it still astounded him that his ex-girlfriend and ex-wife were best friends). The only reason he'd even met her at all was because Evergreen had wanted someone else to tag along on her _not_ -date with Lisanna's brother, Elfman, and so had Elfman because the two were so into each other but were too weird to go on a date, so they'd been dragged into a weird double-date scenario. And, well… They got drunk, things happened, and Bickslow had found himself a girlfriend.

But his relationship with the Strauss hadn't lasted very long after he'd met Lucy, but that was really just a coincidence (she'd been the one to break up with him, surprisingly). It was only two years later that he'd started dating Lucy anyway, where in those two years where she'd gone from being in the middle of getting her bachelor's to being within the last few months of graduating, he'd become her best friend, or at least something _close_ to her best friend. She'd just turned twenty-one then, and he'd been nearly twenty-four, and for six months, they'd worked really well.

They'd had been able to spend the entire summer after she'd graduated together, and as Bickslow looked down to the old pictures in his hand from way back then – even the ones from when they'd just been friends and he hadn't had the courage to actually ask her out – he was smiling. It wasn't something he could help.

He was smiling at the one where they were both lying in bed curled up together just in their underwear, and he'd been holding the camera up above them just so he could get how ridiculously sunburnt they'd both gotten into the frame. Red and raw from being the morons that drove four hours to get to the beach and then forgot the sunscreen – yet Bickslow was still smiling there, and so was Lucy, no matter how much they loathed themselves and how much they hurt, because that had been one of their first actual dates. Lucy had been in the midst of finishing up with her bachelor's degree when they'd started actually dating, so they hadn't really been able to do much because she'd been so busy, but they'd still made it work.

They'd never really been able to do that many things together when they'd first started dating anyway, just because they'd practically been broke – she hadn't worked during college and still lived with her parents then anyway and had always known she'd want to go and get her master's straight after she graduated, and Bickslow had a mostly useless arts degree from four years of art school so it wasn't like the job he'd managed to get after graduating had been all that related to what he was 'qualified' to do. But they were in the City of Dreams; there'd been plenty of things for them to do in the summer.

When he came across the slightly bent photo that Lucy had taken of him getting his figure tattoo on his face from the last weekend they'd had before she'd started college again to get her master's, he found himself laughing at it. Just him lying back on the chair in the tattoo parlour in the middle of the night, more than a little tipsy, and looking like he was in a lot of pain – which he had been, because his girlfriend had let him get a goddamn tattoo on his face. He still liked it though, and she'd married him with it, so it wasn't like he'd ever really regretted it (much).

Once Lucy had gone back to college, they'd had even less time together, but that had been fine. They'd still worked out, even when half of the time they spent together was just with Lucy tucked in on one lounge in her parents' home out in the suburbs with a textbook open on her knees, and him on one opposite her with a charcoal pencil in his hand and his sketchbook in his lap. And as he found that old sketchbook that he'd filled with sketches and watercolours of Lucy over the years in his box of memories, Bickslow could only miss those times once again, because they'd been really, really great times.

…But then they broke up after six months, because Lucy had wanted him to stop getting high so much and being so reckless because he'd done some pretty dumb things when with her (and then she'd been just a little stressed from her classes, too), and he'd been twenty-four then and he'd still been young and stupid and… he'd let her get away that time. It hadn't taken him very long to realise just how stupid he'd been though, but he hadn't been smart enough to do anything about it. Not for a while, anyway.

It wasn't until the holidays had passed and Lucy's college classes had started again in the new year that he'd gotten over himself, and he'd caught the train out of the city and shown up at her parents' house late enough at night that his future in-laws had had another reason to not like him, and apologised and told her he loved her. Because he did, and he'd wanted to tell her before they'd broken up but then he hadn't had the chance to.

And then they stuck together for the next nearly fifteen years, and Bickslow still wished it hadn't been _just_ fifteen years, even though he knew that there was nothing he could do now. They just stopped working.

He reached for the frame in the box and slid his hand across the glass to wipe away the dust that had collected on it. And every time he saw that photo – the one where the twenty-six-year-old version of himself was too busy looking at his new wife to notice the camera – he smiled, though that time that brief glimpse of happiness he got from staring down at his favourite of their wedding photos was disappearing as soon as it had appeared, and Bickslow was only lifting his hand once again to quickly brush away the first tear that broke and letting out a breathless _"fuck"_ as he looked up to the ceiling.

He'd been so stupidly in love with her that he'd proposed in the middle of her holidays between semesters, barely six months after getting back together. But Lucy had been stupid enough to say yes, and they'd been stupid enough to get married at the very beginning of the following year. And stupid decision or not, it had been the best one he'd ever made.

And then it was finding out about Jace just a couple of months later, still before Lucy had finished her last semester of getting her master's. He'd been a surprise… but there hadn't been a single _second_ after they'd found out they were having him that they hadn't wanted that.

And then Bickslow was staring at the few photos in the box from her graduation, some that he'd taken of her, and others that her parents had where he'd been able to be the proud husband standing next to her and that moment had been immortalised in just a small piece of card.

Then it was the photos from when they'd gotten the mortgage on that two-bedroom apartment in the old brownstone in the pleasant neighbourhood on the edge of the city, and they'd been dorks and had just needed to get a picture of them holding the keys to their new home because it had felt so good to be moving into their own place – even if that place had been the scene of a double homicide and they'd had to paint the door red just because they hadn't been able to get the blood stains out of the wood. He'd loved Lucy's parents since he'd practically already moved in with her then by the time they'd gotten engaged, but being married and having their own family on the way while still living with them had been just a little uncomfortable. But they hadn't been able to do anything, because Lucy had still been in college then.

And then there were all the ones that had been taken over the rest of that first year, where Lucy got bigger and bigger (and there were so many photos of her throughout her pregnancy, but that was great); the one where it was Lucy's first day of work as a substitute teacher at one of the high schools in the centre of the city, because that was _all_ she could get since she'd been pregnant; the ones from the baby-shower, and then just all of the other memories they'd made that year alone because he'd loved taking photos, especially of Lucy.

Then it was the ones from when Jace had arrived just before Christmas: the one where she was holding him while still in the hospital, the day he'd entered the world; their first Christmas together as a family and as a married couple where all four of their parents had piled into that crappy little apartment that had barely been big enough for them as it was, and they hadn't been able to get a single _decent_ photo of everyone since they'd been too tired to even get out of their pyjamas since Jace was only three weeks old, and their parents hated each other and had fought the entire day.

And then it was just countless photos of Jace growing up over the years, and so many more of Lucy because she had always been what he loved seeing the most. From birthdays to Easters, to trips to the park and the odd picture of Jace and Lucy all tuckered out after a day of playing and just curled up together on the lounge in front of the tiny fireplace.

They'd been great together, him and Lucy. She was the best thing that ever happened to him, and the nearly fifteen years they'd had together? He didn't regret a single minute of it all, and he knew Lucy didn't, either. But they just stopped working together somewhere along the line, and even when they'd become masters of _making_ things work, because it had taken them years to really get on their feet and be in a place where they were _financially_ stable, they hadn't been able to make their relationship work anymore.

It had just… become stale all of a sudden. Somewhere along the line the flame had diminished, and Bickslow hadn't really noticed it happening until it already had. Jace had been starting middle school, Lucy had gotten a new teaching job close to where Jace went which had really only stopped their then eleven-year-old having to catch the subway into the city on his own (which they hated he'd had to do at all), and then Bickslow had been busy with his business. He didn't know if them just getting so busy all of a sudden had been the cause of it or not, though, but whatever the cause was, they'd only started growing distant as time went on, and then they'd just slowly begun to hate each and every little thing the other did.

But even then, he'd never stopped loving her. Not for a second. All of her perfect imperfections, every curve and edge, he _still_ loved; he still loved _her_.

Yet that hadn't been enough for them. And without _trying_ to get back to where they'd been so happy for so long, they'd decided to just give up. They hadn't been as young as they'd once been; they hadn't had as much energy as they once had. They'd separated for a little while, wondering if that was what they'd needed, and… it kind of had been. Bickslow had hated every second of being away from her, partly because he knew what it had been leading to. But it had been just a little freeing, those few months where they'd tested it out, and then before Bickslow had known it, they'd been getting a divorce just six months after their thirteenth wedding anniversary and it had been over.

And maybe the worst part about it all to Bickslow was that he couldn't bring himself to be happy for her when he knew he should be, because she was moving on and getting on with her life. The worst part wasn't that she was still such a huge part of his life because they had a son and that she was still his best friend in the entire world; it was that he hated the thought of her being with someone that wasn't him, even though he knew that he would never be in Lucy's life like that ever again. He _couldn't_ be.

There was now but one stray photo at the bottom of the now empty box sitting next to him on the bed where he sat, having gone through each and every single item in the box – the old sketches, page by page, his wedding ring, old keepsakes and too many photos to count – and Bickslow carefully reached for it. He couldn't stop the tear from sliding down his cheek and landing on the glossy page with him, holding the camera up above them as he kissed her forehead as she laid curled up against him asleep. He remembered that exact moment as though it had been just the night before.

It had been just one tiny little moment of _millions_ they'd shared together. But it had been one moment he'd wanted to immortalise forever so he could remind himself of it years, decades down the track, just because it had been the moment he'd known that _she_ was what he wanted, even when it had only been hours after she'd been stupid (oh so _thankfully_ stupid) enough to take him back. But nothing else, and nothing more than she would ever give him. Just her, because she was his everything.

Bickslow already knew what was written on the back of it, and so when he turned it over in his hands, he wasn't the least bit surprised to see his own messy cursive handwriting and the words: _don't you **ever** let her go again. _

But he'd already done that.

* * *

As Jace walked out into his living area, Bickslow looked up from where he sat on the sofa with his knees bent and feet on the coffee table. Evergreen was quickly getting up from where she'd been sitting next to her husband of eleven years, Freed, and was rushing over to the teenager who was basically her nephew, and was pulling him into her arms. Jace was already as tall as Evergreen, having gotten his height from his father rather than his mother, obviously, and so as Jace just rolled his eyes with a sigh and let his fairy-obsessed aunt squeal with delight and keep their cheeks pressed together, Bickslow couldn't help but chuckle.

Evergreen had always been affectionate when it came to Jace, and he was used to it by then because whenever they were in town, he always got a few too-tight hugs. But as a teenager, it was just a little annoying.

"Oh! You've grown so much!" Evergreen gushed as she continued to almost suffocate the poor teenager.

"Aunt Ever, you saw me six months ago," Jace groaned.

"But you've still grown so much! Oh, you used to be so small… And… And now you're so big!" She was holding his cheeks now and squeezing them gently. "You're still so cute, too."

"Ever," Freed cut in cautiously. "Jace is nearly fifteen now. I don't think he wants to be called _cute_."

"Oh, shush, you. Just let me call him cute."

Jace rolled his eyes again, and after a little hesitation from Evergreen, he was set free and she went to sit next to her husband again. He didn't mind the two of them, really. He was actually quite fond of his aunt and uncle, even if they weren't related to him and were just best friends of his father. He'd grown up with them always being around until they had their own child – a daughter, six years earlier, and up until Jace had turned fourteen just the year before, he hadn't minded watching her for a few hours when they wanted to go out or anything. She was a good enough kid. Whatever.

But even if he hadn't seen his aunt and uncle for six months because they'd decided to take a trip around the world with their kid, he didn't exactly want to be stuck talking to them. Jace was grabbing his parka from a hook – it was another too-chilly day in the city – as Bickslow was getting a few drinks from the fridge in the modish kitchen. "Hey, Bicks," the teenager began once he had his coat on and his phone in his pocket. He hated calling his father 'Dad', and he knew that his father hated being called by his name. "Can I borrow twenty bucks?"

"Um, yeah? Why?"

Jace was already picking up the leather wallet from where Bickslow left his keys and bills and such on a side-table by the phone and pulling out the twenty-dollar note. "Going to see a movie with Miles," he answered.

Was it insane that Bickslow was just a little surprised? He only had a couple of days a week with his son, and even if Jace spent most of his time in his room or playing games on the Xbox or watching movies, he was still there with him which Bickslow kind of enjoyed (hell, he had no choice but to enjoy it because it wasn't like he could do anything with him). But with Evergreen and Freed visiting since they were back from their holiday and their daughter was at a friend's house because she'd missed her best friend, Bickslow had almost expected his son to actually _maybe_ come out and socialise a little. Just a little. That's all he wanted.

But apparently he wasn't going to get that. Nope. Not today. "Would've been nice to be told you were going out," he mumbled as he grabbed the bottle opener from a drawer.

"I'm telling you now," Jace shrugged.

The man sighed, and before he could even tell his son to be careful (sure, it was only a two-block walk to the subway station and he'd spent his entire life in his city so he was capable of looking after himself when out, even if he wasn't yet fifteen), the door was slamming shut behind him. And with the door closed, Bickslow just lifted his hands slightly and made to strangle the air in front of him while staring at his apartment door. Sometimes it really was tempting to strangle _Jace_ , but the air would have to do.

He didn't even think Lucy would mind all that much if he did happen to strangle their son, though…

"Jace still being a little problematic?" Evergreen asked softly as Bickslow sat down once again with another sigh and handed them each their drinks.

"Understatement of the fucking year."

Freed smiled apologetically. "I'm sure he'll get over it soon enough. He's still just a teenager, after all."

Bickslow sipped at his beer and shook his head. "Nope. I don't think he will," he responded. "He hates me. I'm pretty sure the only way he'd get over it was if I died."

"Bicks, don't say that," Evergreen frowned. "Jace doesn't hate you."

"Oh no. He does. He's told me that on several occasions this year alone."

"I'm sure if he _really_ hated you, he wouldn't stay with you on the weekends."

"He doesn't come by choice," Bickslow mumbled, picking at the label on the glass bottle with his black-polished fingertips. "Lucy wants him to come." He loved Jace being there with him on the weekends, sure, but his son hated being there so much that Bickslow almost wanted Lucy to have him all of the time, not just during the week. That was where Jace's home was, after all, and that was where he was happiest (though it's not like it was that much of an improvement from what he was like when with Bickslow). Bickslow would give up his weekends with his son if it meant maybe making him hate him a little less or even just a little happier.

Evergreen sighed and turned to her husband beside her for assistance, but even with knowing Bickslow for over twenty years, not even Freed knew how to help with that. They haven't a single clue between them.

"But speaking of Lucy," the brunette suddenly began again. Bickslow only glanced up to her. Everyone knew they were still close so she didn't see the harm in talking about her. "She's started dating again. You know that?"

Oh great. Just what Bickslow needed: to talk about his goddamn ex that was dating other guys. Yeah. That was fucking perfect. "Yeah, I did," he sighed. "Jace mentioned it last week when I was picking him up." Bickslow had only managed to get a few other titbits of information about Lucy's new 'boyfriend' from his son the previous weekend. One was that it was another teacher at the fancy private school she worked at on Park Avenue in the midst of the concrete jungle, and two was that she'd only gone on a few dates with the mystery man. But he'd learned that from Lucy, too, so it didn't really count. He turned to Freed then, since Freed was the English Literature teacher there and had been for quite some time. "Who's she dating now?"

"Jellal Fernandes," the man answered. "Physics teacher."

 _Physics?_ Bickslow couldn't imagine what their dinner conversations would be like. Or he could, really. He imagined Lucy falling asleep because he knew that she'd only _just_ passed any of her science subjects back in high school. He scoffed as he took another sip from the beer in his hand. "Sounds like a fucking douchebag. Probably met the fucker, too."

"He's actually quite nice," Evergreen cut in. "We invited him over for dinner one year."

"'Course he is." _Of course_ the guy was nice. But the nicest of guys are always the douchiest, in Bickslow's experience. Good thing _he_ wasn't a nice guy. He was a jerk. But he'd been a jerk when Lucy had married him so whatever.

"And so how are you?"

Bickslow looked back up then. "Huh?"

"You know, since she's dating again," Evergreen explained. "Since you were married for a long time, and all."

Bickslow tried to look like he'd just been asked the silliest question in the whole wide universe and even tried to laugh it off, because that was what he did best. "Come on, Ever," he whined a little. "I'm fine. We've been divorced for two years now. Why wouldn't I be okay? I'm happy for her. It's good she's moving on and getting back out there, y'know? Hopefully this douchebag can make her happy and Jace doesn't scare him off."

Bickslow thought his lie was convincing, because if he had to be perfectly honest, he hoped his nightmarish son scared off Lucy's new boyfriend _Jellal_ _(who is this guy, anyway? Is he Hispanic or something?)_ because he was just too in love with her to really be happy about her dating someone else; his friends, on the other hand, did not think his lie was convincing.

But that was okay. They could ignore that. "Well, don't you think it's time for you to get back out there, too?" the man with the green ponytail asked.

"Why on earth would I do that?"

"So you don't die alone," Evergreen jested.

"I won't die alone. I have my fish," Bickslow replied. Well, the rest of his clownfish were due to die in the next year or two, anyway, and then the others he didn't really care about all that much anyway. But he'd get more fish. He liked the clownfish. "And…" He looked around the room for the giant fucking fur-ball that he lived with, and grinned when he saw it jump up to the corner of his breakfast bar to start licking his paws. "Cadel. I have Cadel. See? I won't die alone."

"Bicks, pets don't count."

"They do so."

"They don't offer the same companionship that a partner would, though," Freed added.

Bickslow cringed. "Why do I need _companionship_?"

"Because it's nice."

It was. Bickslow knew that. He just didn't want it. "So what? I don't need it," he said.

"So, what, you're just going to remain single for the rest of your life?" Evergreen asked, a thin eyebrow raised as she looked over her glasses at him.

He nodded. "Yes, that seems right."

"No. You're not." Nope. She couldn't let her brother become bitter and lonely. "Why don't you want to start dating again? I mean, Lucy has—I mean, it's about time she did, and she's still young and she deserves to be happy—so it's time for you to do the same."

"Ever," he sighed, "I just don't want to, alright?"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not interested in dating." Was that so hard to understand? He was perfectly fine on his own, thank you very much. "And even if I was interested in dating again," he added once he realised that his bottle was already half-empty. " _I have a goddamn tattoo on my face._ Do you really think someone is going to want to date me then?" It wasn't like _he_ cared about the tattoo. But he knew other people did.

"Is that why you don't want to?"

Of course it wasn't. "No, god no. I just—"

"Then why aren't you interested in dating?" she interrupted him.

"Because I just don't want to," he answered for what felt like the fortieth time. "I'm fine being single. I don't need _companionship_ or someone to tell they love me or anyone to grow old with."

The woman stared at her blue-and-black haired friend for a moment and watched him carefully. It was hard not to see that he was irritated, though that could be due to many factors, and Evergreen knew that she was partly to blame for his apparent frustration, having just added to his usual disappointment and constant exasperation when it came to his son.

She could see that he was serious about not wanting to date, though. For whatever reason, he really didn't want to start dating again, and Evergreen just didn't quite understand it. His divorce with Lucy had been as mutual as it could get, and sure, they'd all been sad to hear about it when they'd been ready to tell everyone, but it had had to be done. Not everyone is going to get the happy ending they once thought they'd get at some point in their life; Bickslow wasn't going to get the one he thought he'd get with Lucy because that just _wasn't_ his happy ending.

Evergreen had known Lucy for years, too, though. She'd known her for nearly twenty years, and when you know someone for that many years, it's hard not to have them become an important part in your life. Lucy was important to Evergreen; she was one of her best friends and she was still one of her best friends (like she'd let her brother divorcing the woman ruin a friendship, come on). She was so glad that Lucy was starting to date again, and she was so glad that she'd listened to the rest of her friends because it had really been about time she'd gotten back out there…

But it was time Bickslow did, too. Was it bad of her that she just wanted to see him happy? He was happy, sure, because he'd always just been that kind of guy where nothing could really get him down for very long, but Evergreen was sure he could be happier. Maybe if he met someone, he'd realise that; he'd realise that dying alone wasn't all that he thought it was.

"You know, you could always try one of those singles cruises…"

Bickslow just grabbed the nearest cushion and buried his face in it to smother his groan, much to the amusement of Freed.


	3. progress

"Afternoon, Lucy. You got a second?"

Lucy looked up from where she stood packing up her things in her classroom, and smiled politely to her co-worker in the door. "Of course, Jellal," she answered. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you," Jellal replied as he closed the classroom door behind himself as he came into the room. "Yourself?"

"I'm good, I'm good. But is there any reason in particular you're here? Or did you just want to ask me how I was?"

He only smiled awkwardly in turn as he sat down on one desk. He'd been figured out, hadn't he? "Well, I did want to ask you how you were," he admitted. "But I also wanted to see if you were free to maybe come over for dinner tomorrow night."

Lucy had guessed that that was why Jellal was coming to see her before they both left for the day, because it had been a week since their last date and it seemed reasonable that Jellal would be asking her on another right then. But really, she'd only been on three dates with the man, and the last time she'd really dated anyone she'd been close to twenty years younger and it had still been the twentieth century. She was convinced the dating world had changed just a little since she'd been dating Bickslow.

Not that that was a bad thing, though. She'd been enjoying getting to know Jellal for the most part. He was a really nice guy. A little awkward, sure, but that only made Lucy feel better about herself because she found _everything_ awkward and she almost felt like she couldn't get her feet to stay on the ground. Still, as nice as he was, or as awkward and just a little adorable he was, Lucy wished that Jellal wasn't interested in her.

It would just make things so much easier if he wasn't, because Lucy just really wasn't interested in him – at least not to the same extent. She didn't want to date him; she didn't want to be his girlfriend (not that she was, but still). She just… didn't want to date _anyone_. Dating someone new was pretty difficult when her heart still and always would belong to someone else.

But that hadn't mattered to her friends. Oh no. And it sure didn't help that they weren't actually aware she still loved Bickslow _far_ too much.

 _"It's time to get back out there,"_ Levy had said.

 _"You don't want to die alone, do you?"_ Lisanna had added, making Lucy feel just a little miserable.

 _"But you've been divorced for two years now,"_ Juvia had pointed out.

Just because _they_ were all in happy, loving, stable relationships (two of them with each other, too). And Lucy loved those three to bits, because they were her best and closest friends, and had been for so long that Lucy couldn't even imagine her life without them… But she also hated them.

A lot.

She liked to call them _The Evil Trio of Blue and White_ behind their backs. They were meddlers, the lot of them. They had good intentions, sure, but they just hadn't been able to accept that Lucy was more than okay being on her own. She didn't need or want someone at her side to keep her company. Not when she had Jace, or her friends, or even Bickslow still being a colossal part of her life.

Lucy had been fine with the way things the way they'd been, but then she'd just had to go and screw it all up for herself by listening to The Evil Trio just to get them to leave her the hell alone. And now she had Jellal, who was a really, really great person… And Jellal deserved better.

Except Lucy had absolutely no idea how to tell Jellal that she didn't want to see him anymore, partly because she didn't really want to give him the whole _'it's not you, it's me'_ speech because she knew that Jellal wouldn't believe her because the guy was a goddamn precious cupcake. But it really was her.

So that left coming up with an excuse that wasn't quite an excuse. "I can't do tomorrow night," she said apologetically. "I don't really want to leave my son at home on his own." So the kid was nearly fifteen, sure, but it wasn't exactly like Lucy trusted him all that much (not that she'd admit it all that willingly). Besides, he had homework to do, and she liked to make sure he did it. She didn't want him to fail, not when he had so much potential.

"Maybe we could do your place then?" Jellal suggested. "At least that way, I'd be able to meet your son. Jace is his name, correct?"

"Yeah, it's Jace." She'd only brought Jace up on their dates once or twice, and she had never made it a habit to talk about her personal life – Bickslow and Jace – to her co-workers. Not ever. Lucy had known Jellal since she'd started working there, though, so he had known that she had a son and had previously been married (obviously. She'd also introduced Jellal to Bickslow at one point when they'd still been married when she'd been invited out by her fellow teachers at the start of the summer break) for a few years.

Still, even if she'd told Jellal a few things about Jace over the course of their 'relationship', she didn't want the two meeting each other. Aside from the fact that Jace would probably scare the guy away ( _though maybe that's not such a bad idea…_ ), Lucy just didn't see the point of letting Jellal meet him. They weren't going to be getting anything close to serious – she would most definitely end it before then – so why let Jace maybe _possibly_ get used to him?

"But maybe not yet," she said slowly.

"Oh. Okay then. Yeah, okay."

Lucy grimaced. _Oh, the pain_. She didn't like hurting people. Which is why she added with a hopeful smile, "But his father has him Friday and Saturday night, so maybe you could come over for dinner on one of those nights if you're not busy?"

Jellal nodded as he held the door open for her then. "Friday night sounds good," he said softly.

"Great!" _Ease up on the enthusiasm, girl._ "Will seven work for you? And how do feel about seafood?"

"Seven works perfectly, Lucy. And I _love_ seafood."

"Good," she smiled again, then looked down to the keys he held in his hand as they walked along the empty corridor. It was just a little past three thirty, but school finished at two thirty there, so the main halls were well and truly empty by then – the library would still have students in it, though, but it wasn't uncommon there. "Heading home then?" she asked.

"Yeah. Got some reports to mark that I promised I'd have back to one class for tomorrow," Jellal sighed. "Figured I'd do it at home instead and at least be comfortable. Got a few episodes of _The Big Bang Theory_ to catch up on anyway…" It was his guilty pleasure show – that much he would admit. "But, uh… Do you want me to give you a lift home or anything? Since I know you use the subway instead of driving," he added.

Lucy shook her head. "No, no, I'm okay. Thank you for offering, though," she said. She for one, didn't want to inconvenience him since she knew Jellal lived in a part of the city that was in the opposite direction to her apartment. And two, she didn't particular want to be sitting in a car with him for half an hour. Lucy could stomach going on another date with him, just because he was nice and she did like him (just not enough to forget about someone else), but sitting in a car with him in the city that was known for having some of the worst traffic in the world? _No thank you._ Besides, the subway was faster. "I enjoy my walk to and from the stations." Though the walk from the station on the block closest to her apartment was a much nicer walk than the one to and from the school. At least her neighbourhood, although still in the city, had trees.

Nice trees that were losing all of their leaves, but nice trees nonetheless.

"Fair enough." Reaching their parting place for the afternoon, they stopped. "Well, I… I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning then," Jellal mumbled.

"Yup. At the meeting in the staffroom."

"Yes. The meeting," he nodded. Then he looked around quickly to see if there was anyone around them that would get them in trouble or anything, and seeing only a few students heading home and some other teachers leaving, Jellal looked back down to his colleague and quickly ducked down to lightly kiss her cheek. "Uh, well, I shall see you in the morning. Have a nice night, Miss Heartfilia."

"You too, Mr. Fernandes," Lucy giggled, and then they went their separate ways for the day.

* * *

The nights where Bickslow didn't have Jace with him were mostly spent at his store. Being open at all hours, either being the place for some starving artist who was so close to finishing a masterpiece yet had run out of Prussian blue and couldn't wait until morning to get some more, or being the home away from home for people who just wanted some place quiet to sketch and momentarily forget there was nothing outside of the world they were creating on paper or canvas, there was always something to do. It was mostly paperwork and ordering new stock, but sometimes, that something to do was just sitting down in the store part of the old warehouse and minding the till. It was better _he_ does it than some teenager who probably had classes to go to in the morning or assignments to finish, because it wasn't exactly like Bickslow had anything else to do.

Besides, there were always people there to keep him company, and at least people talked back to him occasionally, unlike his son, or the stupid cat, or his fish.

But there was one woman in particular whose company Bickslow had grown to appreciate a little bit more than usual. He didn't really _like_ her, but he knew that she liked him. Or, well… Bickslow thought so, at least. Honestly, the whole not being interested in dating thing made him not pay attention to whether or not someone might have a crush on him, because he just didn't care.

But this woman… Well, he had to admit it was just a little flattering. Because really, just who the fuck would like _him_? He didn't even like himself, let alone expect anyone else to. Still, she'd been coming in a lot – mostly at odd hours of night – for the last few months, and Bickslow liked her company, and for some reason, she seemed to like his.

Bickslow didn't really know that much about her, though, even though whenever she'd been in lately, they were talking about something. He knew her name was Minerva, though, and that she was an entire decade younger than him. He knew she was studying part-time – she was taking a class on astrophysics, he thought – and working part-time as well, all while trying to be a single parent to a three-year-old. And just like how Bickslow knew that Minerva liked spending what little free time she had most nights there with her daughter, in the sanctuary he'd created for people like her just so she could have somewhere quiet to be to do something she'd always loved doing, Bickslow also knew that she was a lot nicer than she looked.

But maybe that was why he was intrigued by her. Maybe the fact she wasn't what she seemed was why he liked her; maybe it was why he could see himself liking her in a different kind of way, too.

Or maybe it was just because Evergreen was stuck in his head still, trying to tell him that he needs to start dating again and just move on once and for all.

Minerva was nice enough, though. Pretty enough, too. And Bickslow liked her daughter as well – she reminded him of Jace when he'd been little – having watched her for a little while every now and then because toddlers and watercolours don't mix, and it seemed a shame to let the kid ruin her mother's work, and it didn't help that Bickslow loved what she could do with one tiny little paintbrush, too.

Still, maybe asking her on a date wouldn't be so bad. Bickslow wouldn't mind getting to know her a little better; maybe he could ask her how she got into art, or maybe how she came up with the name _Zara_ for her daughter.

He'd been thinking about it for a few days now, too. Mostly about whether or not she would even want to go out with him, because even if he was right and she was attracted to him, she was busy, and who was to say she'd have time to date him, let alone even _want_ to. But Bickslow had also been thinking about what they could even do if they went on a date. He'd thought back to his first date with Lucy and almost wondered if they could do something like that, but Bickslow had known that it was a stupid idea as soon as it had even crossed his mind – he didn't want to do anything even _resembling_ what him and Lucy had done all those years ago, because that was them; it had been their thing. And sure, right then if he was given the choice to go back and have that first date with Lucy again and do it all exactly the same way, he wouldn't accept that offer, just because getting high (or in Lucy's case, drunk) and going indoor ice skating in the middle of the night really wasn't all that appealing to him anymore…

But it was still _them_. It was _their_ kind of thing to do, and it would never be Bickslow's with someone else – like Minerva. Even if they maybe clicked on some level, Lucy and Minerva would still be worlds apart, and Bickslow knew that was just because of how he felt, and even if he found a way to stop loving Lucy as much as he did, she still wouldn't be the same as Minerva and Minerva wouldn't be the same as Lucy. They were different people, and Bickslow knew that.

He wanted to find out what kind of person Minerva was, though, for reasons he didn't even understand because he couldn't see anything possibly going far when his heart was the property of someone else. But Bickslow wanted to try. For himself, partly, but mostly because it would keep Evergreen happy, and if she gave him one more brochure for a singles cruise he was going to buy _himself_ a one-way plane ticket to somewhere tropical and isolated so he and his fish could live out their days in peace.

So he decided to just get on with it; try his hand at moving on. It was probably for the best, anyway. He couldn't have Lucy back, for they just didn't work. He should just be grateful that he still had his best friend, really. And being that it was just another one of those nights where Minerva had spent what little free time she had upstairs somewhere with her sketchbook and her favourite watercolour pencils, Bickslow figured he should just ask her out when she was leaving. She had to pass by him whether she wanted to or not (which she did, always, he knew). Partly because the store was the entrance, and the till was at the very front of the store, and partly because he'd been tasked with watching Zara for the last thirty minutes, but Zara had fallen asleep on him when she'd asked about what he was doing on the computer.

He didn't mind it at all, though – he found it kind of funny that him trying to explain spreadsheets was probably what had made her fall asleep in the first place. It made him feel useful again, even if it was another woman's child.

When he saw Minerva coming down the stairs, ready to leave, he only smiled at her before looking back down to Zara with her head on his shoulder. "Leaving then?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," Minerva sighed, looking far too apologetic as Bickslow began to carefully move the toddler, trying his best not to wake her. "I have an exam tomorrow and I just… needed to de-stress a little beforehand. Besides, I need to get home and get this one to bed," she said once she had her daughter back in her arms, still asleep, hopefully.

"Eh, don't worry about it. Not the first time I've had a kid fall asleep on me. Don't worry," Bickslow replied. "She's a good kid, though."

 _Right, because you have a kid who's a teenager…_ Sometimes Minerva only found herself forgetting that, though she didn't really know how because she knew that he was a full ten years older than her and that he had all those extra years' worth of experience over her… But sometimes she forgot. "Well, thank you, I guess," she mumbled.

It was still bad enough to her that she'd ever had to ask Bickslow to keep her daughter occupied for a little while – even though he had actually _offered_ to play with Zara when he'd seen her struggling to keep her child occupied and finish the piece she'd been working on for weeks at that point in what little time she had – just so she could have _some_ time where she wasn't having to worry about anything other than the lines on the paper in front of her. But as guilty as it made her feel, sometimes, Minerva just needed time to herself to do the things she loved. No Zara, no Sting or Rogue, no job, no college.

Just her.

But she didn't like accepting help from others. Never really had, probably never will. And when she did accept help, it was always reluctantly. But then in the end, she was also grateful. She was grateful for Sting and Rogue always babysitting Zara when she was working or at class, and she was grateful for Bickslow when he played with her sometimes, too. But she still felt guilty about it, even when Bickslow was someone she trusted too much already.

"But, uh… Before you go…" Bickslow cleared his throat once he saw Minerva was ready to leave. He could only hear Evergreen's annoying voice in his head, telling him to just get on with his life. "I wanted to see if you maybe wanted to… do something one night?"

Minerva felt a blush creeping onto her cheeks and she couldn't help but hide her face slightly against her daughter's head – mostly to hide her smile, too. "Like a… date?" she asked back.

"Yeah, like a date." _Is that even how you ask people out anymore? Fuck, I'm old._ "When you're not busy with school or anything, I mean. But only if you wanted to. I'm completely okay with getting turned down. I promise I'll survive."

"That's nice to know," she almost giggled. "But… I'm not interested in turning you down. I'd really like to go out with you sometime…"

"Great!" Bickslow only grimaced internally then. He shouldn't be that excited; he didn't even like her that much. And hell, he shouldn't be that nervous, either, but he was for some stupid reason. He only wondered if he'd been that nervous when he'd asked Lucy out the first time? _Fuck no. I was getting high most of the time. And hold on, why am I even thinking about Lucy in the first place right now? God, I deserve to go to hell…_ By under no circumstances should Bickslow be thinking about his ex-wife when he was asking another woman on a date. "Um, when were you free?" he asked, trying his best not to embarrass himself. "Since, you know, I know you're busy and all…"

"Maybe, uh… Maybe next Saturday? My exams will be over by then and I'll be able to get someone else to watch Zara."

Bickslow nodded. Sure, he had Jace on Saturdays, but the kid didn't give a shit about him anyway. "That's cool. We can figure out a time that works for you sometime next week if you'd like?"

Minerva was sure she really was blushing over both ears then, but she couldn't really help it. She'd been so certain that Bickslow didn't feel the same way about her – how could he when he was that much older than her and when it almost felt like they were an entire world apart in experience? But it really wasn't like Minerva had ever cared about that. She'd thought Bickslow would, because she couldn't seem to get it out of her head that he'd been married since the time she'd still been dealing with _acne_ and other ridiculous teenager problem… But maybe Bickslow didn't care about that either, and Minerva really liked that.

"That sounds good," she said almost giddily. "But I should really be getting home now to get this one to bed," she added, nodding down to Zara still asleep on her shoulder.

"Right, of course."

"You should text me though."

"Should I?"

Minerva shrugged as she held the door open with one hand. "I mean, if you want to…" she mumbled. She couldn't help but want to giggle again when Bickslow went to sit back down on the stool behind the counter and almost stumbled. "You have my number if you do decide to, though."

Bickslow was only giving her a blank look for a second because it took him a moment to understand how he could possibly already have her number. And then he was feeling like a fool and nodding to her knowing smirk. "Right, because of the membership thing…" It was really only the regulars who were members though, and it was usually just those who either spent a lot of time there, happened to frequent the actual store a lot, or a mix of both. He usually just had their email and their number so he could send out invitations to events that were being hosted there (there'd been a few parties over the years as it had grown, but it was mostly just opportunities for people to showcase the things they were proud of), and Minerva was one of those people who got those invites. Bickslow just had to find the binder where he had everyone's details… "But, um, yeah," he continued, clearing his throat. "I'll text you sometime and we'll work out a time and all. But you should really get going now. Get Zara to bed and… And yourself, too, since you have an exam in the morning. Good luck with that, by the way."

"Thank you, and I will," she smiled softly as she stepped out through the open door. "So goodnight, Bickslow."

He smiled back to her before she was gone. "Night, Minerva."

It was only when the store was quiet again, the one actual customer that had been in there having paid and headed upstairs, that Bickslow began to wonder if he could even do it – date Minerva – at all. He wondered if it was even a good idea, because he almost felt like he was just using her…

He didn't like her the same way she did, but he was letting her believe that he did. He was letting Minerva believe that because he wanted to see if it was even possible for him to really want to be in a relationship with anyone other than Lucy. Bickslow wanted to be hopeful, but… he was more doubtful than anything.

Still… He wanted to try. He didn't want to use her, or hurt her, and as fine as he was with the way things were, Bickslow at least wanted to know he could be fine with being with someone that wasn't Lucy. He had to get over her as best he could, and he really wasn't going to be able to do that if all he did was mope.

He had to try. He had to give himself a chance, and Minerva a chance, too. And as doubtful as he was in himself, he was just a little excited about going on a date with her.

* * *

 **A/Ns:** _One, I don't know how to write Jellal. And two, I don't know how to write Minerva. But she's kind of fun and a precious cupcake. And I made myself ship Bixerva (this is what I'm calling it because MinerSlow and MinerBix sound horrendous) so fucking hard it's not even funny._

 _But anyway. Just... boring chapters. Again. And I just uploaded these other two today because I kind of just went fuck it - not like anyone really cares when I update things anyway lmao. And now I'm getting salty again so I'm going to go and write some fluff and talk myself out of going on another failed hiatus._

 _Until next time._


	4. mondays

"It's such a shame things didn't work out with Jellal," Levy sighed, sipping at her tea. "He sounded so nice."

Lucy only shrugged from the opposite side of the counter and hid her smirk against the rim of the cup. "It's fine," she said. And really, it was fine. It was so much _more_ than fine, because _Jellal_ had decided to break it off with _her_ on the Monday morning when they saw each other again after their dinner date on the Friday.

She really had been intending to do it herself, though, so Lucy had been just a little surprised when her colleague had come into her classroom right before the first of her students would arrive just to tell her that they shouldn't see each other anymore. Because she was distant, and kind of weird and had obviously been uncomfortable on their dates. And _apparently_ , Mr. Jellal Fernandes had a fiancée anyway, so they couldn't see each other. But that was something Lucy knew was a lie as soon as she had heard it, but she'd only let him get away with it because she'd internally been rejoicing at the fact it was over.

And for a Monday, she'd had a really great day.

But now it was Wednesday, and her friends were over for tea like they'd come to do every Wednesday afternoon, and were only just hearing about her 'failed relationship'.

"I'm sure it wasn't anything you did, Lu," Levy said, reaching for her friend's hand across the counter. Lucy had to refrain from rolling her eyes. "Men are so stupid. They can't see what's good right in front of their eyes."

"I second that," Lisanna snickered.

And that time, Lucy did roll her eyes. "Sure, they're stupid—"

"You have a _son_ , you know," Jace grumbled from the lounge.

"—but there's no need to place the blame on them all the time," Lucy continued. Really, she couldn't let her friends hate Jellal. He hadn't done anything wrong. "I don't need cheering up. I'm fine. I was going to call things off with Jellal soon anyway, so it was for the best."

"What?! Why?" Levy asked, looking as utterly disappointed as Lisanna next to her.

"It wasn't working. I didn't even want to date anyone in the first place, but you lot..."

"We just want you to be happy," Lisanna smiled apologetically before mumbling, "And get laid again."

"H-Hey!"

"You at least slept with him before he broke up with you though, right?"

Lucy glanced back to the lounge as the blood rushed to her cheeks just as Jace got up with a groan, shook his head and turned for the hall – he was out of there. The last thing he wanted to do was listen to a conversation about his mother's sex life. But Lucy didn't exactly want to _talk_ about it either, but with the two sitting opposite her in her small kitchen, she knew she had no choice. So she shook her head and took another sip of her tea before replying with a meek, "Nope."

"Seriously?" Levy muttered.

"What's wrong with not sleeping with someone?"

"Nothing is wrong with that," Lisanna chimed in again, smirking a little too wickedly for Lucy's tastes. "It's just been, what, how many years since you've been laid now?"

"…Three?" _Is that right?_ She'd been divorced for nearly two and a half, and then there'd been those few months before they'd actually gotten divorced where Bickslow had sort of moved out, and then there was the few months before that where they'd just started coming something close to hating each other… _Three sounds about right._ "Something like that," Lucy shrugged.

"That's depressing."

"Is not."

Levy grimaced before she quietly said, "It kind of is, Lu…"

Lucy huffed and pursed her lips. "Well, I'm perfectly fine. I don't need to be having sex to be happy, thank you very much." She wasn't even interested in sex anyway. She could mark an entire assignment – or maybe even two if she was speedy enough! – in the same amount of time it would take to finish. "Now can we please just change the subject?"

And the two women on the opposite side of the counter just looked to each other for a moment as they each tried to think of something to say that could be as interesting as their best friend's love life. But then Lisanna's eyes were lighting up as she turned to Lucy with another bright smile. "Oh! Juvia gets back on Saturday morning."

"Yeah? Are you excited?"

Lisanna nodded quickly. "Super."

"Does she know that all of your adoption paperwork has gone through yet?" Levy asked.

"Not yet. I wanted to surprise her with the news once she's home."

Lucy smiled as she turned to place her empty mug on the sink. "I'm sure she'll be over the moon once she finds out she'll be able to be a mum," she said softly.

Lisanna nodded again as she brought her own mug back to her lips. "I know she will be."

* * *

Bickslow spent far longer than he should've trying to find something to wear for his date with Minerva that night. He was sure he hadn't spent half as much time getting ready for his dates with Lucy when they'd first started seeing each other close to two decades earlier, but he knew things had been different then, too. He'd grown up a lot since then unsurprisingly, and he wasn't half as stupid now as he had been back then.

He just really wanted to make a good impression on Minerva, because generally speaking, first impressions weren't his forte, and they never had been. He'd never cared much about it or really had much of a reason to – those that had bothered to actually look past the fact he was jerk by nature and gotten to really know him were the people he'd always kept close – but even with Minerva having known him for a little while, he still wanted to impress her on their date. There was a difference between getting to know someone because they babysat your kid, and getting to know someone because they wanted to maybe be in a relationship with them.

A good impression was necessary, because he really liked Minerva and he didn't exactly want to make her question just why she'd liked him in the first place. He was really excited for their night, and he really had been looking forward to it since he'd first asked her on that date a couple of weeks earlier.

Still, being excited didn't stop him from being nervous, and all Bickslow could think about was what goddamn shirt he was going to wear. He just wanted to look nice, that's all, but he couldn't decide if a striped shirt would look better than a plain shirt, or if a lighter colour would be more suitable. He just had no fucking clue.

A glance to his watch on his wrist had him quickly realising that it didn't really matter if a plain shirt or a lighter colour one would look better, because he just didn't have the time to figure it out, let alone actually get changed. What he was wearing was just going to have to do. So Bickslow was quickly closing his wardrobe, deciding to just put everything on his bed away later, and was rushing back out into the rest of his apartment.

"Alright." He picked his phone and keys up to quickly pocket them, followed by his wallet after pulling out a few notes for Jace to use for dinner. "How do I look? Do I look okay?"

Jace only looked up from his phone with a sigh when he realised his father was actually talking to him. _Is he really asking me for an opinion?_ "Um, well… Where are you going?" he asked. He couldn't very well be anything close to helpful if he didn't know where his dad was even going for his date.

"A restaurant on Third."

"Is it fancy?"

Bickslow shrugged. "Not particularly," he answered. He'd been there a few times (with Lucy for most of those times, too), and he'd always had a nice time there. It wasn't outrageously fancy, but it wasn't just some twenty-four-seven diner, either. "Why? You think it'll be too much?"

"Jeez, Bicks…" the teenager mumbled. "What's with the questions? Shouldn't you know what's appropriate by now?"

"What did I tell you about calling me Bicks? And, because… Well, the last time I went on a first date was eighteen years ago and with your mother, thank you very much. Dating was just a little different back then."

"Oh, right. You're from the Stone Age. I forgot."

Bickslow rolled his eyes as he headed for the door after quickly feeding his marine babies – his fish. "Not quite," he mumbled. "Try Bronze Age." Because if he couldn't make fun of his age, then who could? He certainly couldn't let his son think he was actually insulting him. Oh no. And convinced that his plans and his outfit were fine – or at least good enough to not make a fool of himself – Bickslow was finally getting ready to head out the door and go pick up his date. "Well, I've gotta leave. Don't stay up too late, alright?"

"Are you even coming back?" Jace asked as he responded to a text.

"Of course I'm coming back. Who do you think I am?"

"Oh, I don't know…" Jace shrugged. "Someone who probably needs to get laid?"

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, kid," Bickslow mumbled. "But anyway. Don't stay up too late. There's money by the phone for dinner. And for the love of god, if you're gonna order fucking porn with my credit card, do _not_ tell me, and do _not_ tell your mother I even let you do it."

"You mean you're letting me use your credit card to watch porn?"

"No. I just mean—actually, never mind." Bickslow generally didn't care that much if he did things every now and then that would classify him as a horrible parent, because aside from the fact that his kid was an asshole, he was perfectly fine. But still, the kid wasn't so much a _kid_ – he was getting pretty close to fifteen – and aside from that one time Lucy had actually caught him watching something he shouldn't have been (which had ended with Bickslow being woken up at 2 a.m. to a mortified Lucy calling him to tell him what had happened), and then that one time Bickslow had actually read his credit card statement for once and seen something that he _himself_ had most definitely not paid for, Bickslow wasn't capable of being the over-protective parent that was really just ignorant of what his teenage son did and thought about.

He'd been fifteen too… once. A really long ago, sure, but he still knew what went through a teenage boy's mind.

And it wasn't pretty. It was utterly disgusting.

And the last thing Bickslow wanted was for his ex-wife to yell at him for actually letting their son watching _inappropriate_ material. If he didn't _know_ about it, he could play the innocent (until proven guilty, of course) card.

"Just… Just don't do anything stupid," Bickslow added in afterthought. Though thankfully, Bickslow knew he didn't even need to remind Jace of that. He really was a good kid, considering all things.

* * *

Just about ready for bed but not quite, Lucy returned to their small living room after switching off the lights in the rest of the apartment and headed for the sofa. "Lift your head, kiddo," she said softly, and then sat down in the corner after Jace had lifted his head to give her room. " _Avatar_ again?" Lucy asked as she watched the movie play on the T.V. in front of her.

"Yup," Jace mumbled, dropping his head to rest on the pillow on his mother's lap. It had been his favourite movie since it had come out – when Bickslow had taken him to see it. Ever since then, he'd just watched it at least once every few weeks. It just made him feel better.

Lucy personally couldn't stand it, even though she'd seen it dozens of times by that point. She still put up with it though, especially right then, because there were just so few moments those days where Jace wasn't being a teenager and hating absolutely everything and everyone. She missed the sweet, kind-hearted, caring boy she'd raised. And it was moments like those, where her son just curled up on the lounge next to her and watched his favourite movie, that made Lucy feel like she'd been taken back in time to when everything was perfect; where Jace was still a kid and things had been still been fine between her and Bickslow.

She hadn't even seen Bickslow at all over the last few weeks. Jace had suddenly stopped wanting to be picked up on Friday afternoons, so they'd just let him use the subway to get to Bickslow's building, and Bickslow had stopped having a valid reason to visit Lucy. She hadn't called him or had a single message from him either, and Lucy just hadn't been able to help but miss him more than she usually did. And it certainly wasn't like they could just talk for the sake of talking. If it weren't for Jace, Lucy had no doubt that they'd have a very different relationship, if one at all. Their son was the only reason they were still a part of each other's lives, but right then, Jace was the _only_ thing they seemed to have in common. Everything else that had been there seemed to just disappeared suddenly.

"So, um…" Lucy looked down to the teenager as she idly stroked his hair back from his forehead. Jace was all Bickslow except for his blonde hair – that was all her doing. But as far as not getting haircuts went, that was most definitely something he'd inherited from his father. "How's your dad?" she asked quietly. "Did you do anything exciting this weekend?"

Jace had been expecting her to ask about Bickslow at some point. She'd done so every Sunday night for the last few weeks, just like his dad had done every Friday afternoon when he walked into his apartment. It hadn't taken Jace very long to find out that they'd stopped stopping to each other as much as they used to, and it hadn't been all that difficult to see that it had happened right around the time Bickslow had gone on his second date with Minerva.

He'd even met Minerva just the day before when she'd come into the art store to pick up something she'd needed to get ordered in. It had been obvious that Bickslow hadn't been intending on letting him meet his new mother (which Jace had, of course, called Minerva after she'd left, which had only made Bickslow refuse to talk to him for the rest of the afternoon) for a while yet, and for the most part Jace hadn't had any interest in knowing who his father was dating either. But after meeting her, and asking Bickslow about her later (and oh, had that been painful), Jace had only realised that his dad so far didn't have any plans of having his _last_ date with Minerva any time soon. The guy really liked her.

And of course, Jace hated the entire thing, but what the hell was he going to do about it? He hadn't liked his mother dating that nerd from the private school she taught at (and he was thankful he'd never had the pleasure of meeting the guy, too), and he didn't like the fact that his asshole father had been able to be with someone else when he knew full well that the guy was still in love with his mother. But Jace couldn't exactly tell Bickslow just why he hated it all so much, nor did he really _want_ to tell Bickslow why he hated him. He didn't deserve an explanation, not when it was something he should've figured out Jace had first told him he hated him for leaving.

But still, Lucy asking about Bickslow was much more annoying than Bickslow asking about Lucy. Jace didn't care about hurting his father, which was why he'd never brought up the fact that his mother had stopped seeing the teacher from her school and let the guy believe that she was still in a relationship. But Jace cared about hurting his mother, because hurting her was the last thing he ever wanted to do. She didn't deserve that when the fact she was divorced was causing her enough pain as it was. Jace just didn't want to tell his mum anything about Bickslow, because he knew that telling her how the man Jace knew _she_ was still in love with too had started dating again would just hurt her even more.

But… She deserved to know. Keeping it from her would just make things worse.

"Bicks is fine, I guess," he mumbled eventually with a small shrug.

"Jace, you know he doesn't like you calling him by his name…"

Jace wasn't planning on calling him anything else anytime soon, so her simply ignored his mother and continued with just as much disinterest, "We didn't do anything interesting, as usual." He shrugged again. "Spent the day helping out at the store yesterday. That's about it."

"That sounds nice," Lucy murmured. "You used to love helping out at your dad's shop!" She still had pictures with Jace as a toddler sitting on Bickslow's lap behind the counter and pretending to be ringing up a customer's order on the register, and other ones from one of the first classes Bickslow had taught once he'd expanded his store, and five-year-old Jace had only wanted to help his dad out and teach too. For a while they'd thought Jace would want to follow in his father's footsteps and pursue art, but Lucy couldn't even remember the last time she'd seen her son pick up a pencil to do something other than his maths homework.

"I guess…" Jace mumbled, then was tipping his head back to glance up to his mother before adding softly, "He has a girlfriend now, you know." He was just waiting for that moment where her heart would break even more.

"Who? Your dad?"

He nodded. And already, with just that one sentence, Jace could see how much it had hurt his mother. Jace only wished he could stop her from feeling that way, but he knew he couldn't do that. "Her name's Minerva. She visits the store a lot. She just hangs out there at nights, I think," he continued. "Bicks looks after her kid when she's there, too."

That was like twisting the knife that had just been stabbed into the centre of her heart. She'd always known that Bickslow would start dating again, and she'd accepted that it was just going to have to be something she'd find a way to deal with. But now that Bickslow really had started dating again, Lucy was only realising just how much it actually hurt. And the fact that his new girlfriend had a kid was just making it that much worse, even if seeing her ex-husband maybe become a step-parent at some point in the future was something she'd always known would be a possibility.

It was just that she remembered how much Bickslow had wanted another child when they'd still been together and Jace had still been a kid; she remembered how much _she_ had wanted another child, too. It had just never happened, no matter how much they'd tried to make it happen. And when each of her doctors had told her there was just nothing physically wrong with her (or Bickslow, for that matter), they'd just agreed that it just wasn't meant to be. And eventually, Bickslow had just moved on from it.

But his new partner having a kid just hurt, and as much as Lucy really did want to be happy that Bickslow was probably happy with whoever it was he was dating, she just couldn't be. "H-How old are they?" she asked softly.

"Like three I think. She has some weird as hell name, too."

"Oh…" Lucy couldn't help but feel like she was really starting to lose Bickslow. For so long, he'd still always been there for her, even when they'd been divorced. He always been just a single phone call away should she ever need him; always been there despite everything.

But now, Lucy only worried that she was finally going to have to actually let Bickslow go. They were divorced. It wasn't right for her to keep relying on him as much as she did. And as much as she _hated_ that he'd finally started seeing someone, all she wanted was for Bickslow to be happy, and the last thing she wanted to do was get in the way of that. If _Minerva_ made him happy, then so be it.

She was just the ex-wife. She shouldn't really have much of a place in his life anymore, child together or not. Not even Jace needed them to get along, and if anything, Lucy was sure their teenager would be better off if they weren't still so close.

Except there was just one problem: Lucy had no idea how she was going to be able to distance herself from Bickslow. Aside from not wanting to, it had just been so long since he'd become her best friend in the whole wide world that she'd forgotten how to live without him being a huge part of her life.

Lucy had always known that she'd have to learn that at some point, ever since she'd signed her name on their divorce papers two and a half years earlier, but she'd never really expected it to be so soon. Lucy just wished she'd have more time, because if anything, she still wasn't quite ready to completely give up on their relationship. Even having agreed to get that divorce, she'd always had a tiny bit of faith in her that they'd still eventually find a way to fix things. They'd never really tried back then, and Lucy regretted that, but she'd still believed that things would eventually make their way back to how they'd once been.

But with Bickslow dating someone else, Lucy knew it was time to let herself give up.

Jace wasn't surprised by his mother going painfully silent after that. He'd expected something like that, but he hadn't expected it to hurt _him_ so much. He hated that. But not as much as he hated how _guilty_ he felt for hurting his mother. He wished he could just make it go away, but Jace knew he couldn't. She'd needed to know, and he'd told her. He'd done the right thing.

When Lucy gently lifted his shoulders so she could stand up after a few more minutes, Jace still wasn't surprised.

"You know what? I think I'm just going to head to bed now…"

Jace only nodded as he set his head back on the pillow.

"Don't stay up too late, alright? You've got school in the morning," Lucy softly reminded the teenager. She was sure Jace only rolled his eyes at her when he mumbled the answer she always liked to hear as a parent, but Lucy really didn't mind. All she wanted to do right then was break out her secret chocolate stash in her room and eat enough of it to make herself sick.

* * *

It was a few weeks later and just two weeks before the school ended for the winter break that Lucy was storming down one of the almost empty halls of her son's school. If there was one thing she hated more than anything that was even remotely _science-y_ , it was getting called in to see Jace's principal. It was never good when that happened.

Lucy only _dreamed_ about getting called in to see the principal just to be told that her son was top of his class. But unfortunately, Lucy knew she wasn't dreaming when she walked into the reception building and just saw her ex-husband sitting beside their son, and looking more than a little pissed off. That only made Lucy worry even more, because she was sure it was something serious if they'd both been called.

She took the seat on the other side of Jace when she saw the principal's door was closed and then looked to Bickslow. "Sorry I couldn't get here earlier," she apologised, just a little out of breath from her trek from the subway station to where she now sat. "I had a staff meeting after class that I couldn't get out of and—"

"Don't worry about it," Bickslow muttered.

Lucy shifted uncomfortably on the chair. She couldn't quite tell if Bickslow was mad at her, or he was just in a bad mood because of whatever it is Jace had done to warrant having a meeting with the principal. She hoped it was the latter, of course, but she couldn't help but wonder if that was how their relationship was going to be, now that Bickslow was dating someone and if he'd realised that they couldn't really keep going on being friends anymore…

But right then, Lucy only tried her best not to think about that. She'd already been struggling with her feelings over the last few weeks following Jace telling her that Bickslow had started dating, so really, the last thing she needed to be doing was worrying about _completely_ losing him. That just terrified her.

"W-Well, have you been waiting long? It's nearly…" She glanced at the simple watch on her wrist. "It's just about four," Lucy pointed out.

"I couldn't get here until half past anyway, so it's fine, really," Bickslow replied.

"You haven't been waiting for me to get here, have you?"

"Nope. Principal is still in with the other kid."

"The other kid?" Lucy's brow furrowed as she looked to the sulking teenager beside her. She had no idea why she'd been called in with Bickslow to see the principal; she hadn't been told a single thing about what had happened. But if there was another kid in with the principal right before Jace, Lucy was sure she had an _idea_ about what was going on. She couldn't help but sigh as she finally asked her son, "God, Jace, what on earth did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," Jace grumbled.

Bickslow chuckled almost wickedly at his son's lie. He'd been there long enough to have gotten the answer out of him, so he knew that Jace had most definitely done _something._ "He got into a fight."

"A _fight_?!" Lucy had to stop herself from shouting as she stared at her son in shock with anger quickly boiling up within her, alongside her disappointment. Jace had never been one to get into fights. All the other times she'd been called into the principal's office it had just been because his grades had been slipping and he'd been skipping classes or not handing in homework. Fighting had just never been something Jace had done; he'd never been the kind of kid to get into that kind of trouble. "What happened? Why would you… Why would you get into a _fight_?" she asked, trying her best to keep her emotions under control. She could yell at him later.

The teenager rolled his eyes. The damn traitor. The only reason he'd told Bickslow about getting into the fight that day at all was because he'd known that he'd be stuck there for a while and he might've found himself tempted to punch his _father_ in the face should he have had to put up with the guy badgering him about the reason he'd been called in. Jace had really had no choice in telling his dad the reason for the principal visit.

And as much as he'd been enjoying how his parents had all of a sudden actually started acting like they a divorced couple (well, by their standards at least), Jace knew he should've expected his big-mouthed father to tell his mother about the fight. The guy told Lucy _everything_.

"It's not a big deal, alright?" Jace insisted, and the pout on his face and the frustration and bitterness in his voice only reminded Lucy of who the kid had gotten most of his traits from. "He was just pissing me off."

"So, what? You thought getting into a fist fight would be a good idea?"

Jace shrugged. "I thought punching him in the mouth to make him shut the fuck up—"

"Oi, how about you watch your own mouth," Bickslow warned him, just to get another sigh and eye roll from the teenager.

Lucy only shook her head. _Disappointed_ didn't even come close to how she felt with Jace, but she already had no idea what else she was supposed to say right then. She only supposed that she was better off not saying anything until the principal was ready for their meeting.

* * *

Jace was unsurprisingly the first one out of the principal's office, and behind him, his parents just followed slowly in silence. Bickslow was only silent because he didn't particularly feel like sharing just how much he wanted to _kill_ his own goddamn son right then, and Lucy was just trying to piece together everything that had actually just happened.

Of all the things she'd never expected Jace to be, it was a liar. Lucy was so sure she'd raised him better than that. All she and Bickslow had ever done when Jace had been growing up was tell him how important it was to tell them the truth, no matter how bad it was, and Lucy had just thought that Jace had remembered all of that – that even if he was in trouble, it was better for them to know for them to find out when things were worse.

But she'd been wrong, as it turns out. And getting told by Jace's principal that they'd been sending letters and warnings home with him for _weeks_ had almost completely humiliated her, partly because she'd only ended up accusing the school's faculty of being lazy and just _claiming_ to do something, rather than actually going through with it too. Because not once had Jace handed her any letters or written warnings about how his attendance had been falling and his test results were less than satisfactory, or even about how his behaviour was becoming less and less tolerable.

Not even Bickslow had known about any of it, but once he'd found out Jace had gotten into a fight, he'd only suspected that it hadn't actually been the first one. He still knew his son, even if that son hated him, and Bickslow knew that Jace wouldn't have just snapped and gotten into a fight for the sake of it. It just hadn't made sense for him to be a one-time occurrence.

But walking out of the principal's office in silence, they were both just trying to figure out what to do about Jace getting suspended, because if it was one thing Jace getting suspended had done, it was open their eyes to how many _other_ problems they suddenly had to deal with. Bickslow couldn't help but wonder what else Jace was keeping from the both of them.

He only sighed as Jace went off ahead and left them both in the now completely empty hall, aside from the janitor behind him pushing his mop around the floor. "I take it Jace'll be with me the entire week then?" he asked. Jace was far away enough that he wasn't quite so worried about accidentally tripping him anymore or slapping the back of his head for being a goddamn moron. At least the kid had enough brains to get away from any possible wrath he may or may not inflict.

"Yup…" Lucy sighed. "If I could take the next week off work to stay home and make sure he does everything he's supposed to, I would. I just… I can't. You know that."

"I know. It's alright." Bickslow shrugged. He had no problem with having Jace for the week, even if it was under some pretty frustrating circumstances. Besides, he didn't want Lucy worrying about whether or not Jace was doing the work he was supposed to do on his suspension. Bickslow was more than capable of parenting his own teenage son. Probably. Well, he hoped so. He couldn't quite tell right then. "I mean, I'll still have to be at the shop a few days this week, but he can just go sit upstairs and do his work up there. I'll just check on him every now and then or something."

Lucy nodded. "I'm sure that will be fine." She sighed again before asking, "Can you maybe pick him up after dinner tonight? I'll make sure he has everything packed for when you get there."

"Sure. We'll, uh… We'll talk then, right?"

"Talk? O-Oh, right, yes… Of course. Talk…" For a second, Lucy only wondered just what it was they could possibly talk about, but then she remembered that their son had in fact just been given a week long suspension, right before the winter break and his fifteenth birthday. They had plenty to talk about.

It was just that she really didn't want to, partly because it would probably be the first actual conversation they'd had in just about two months, and the last time they'd gone that long without talking to each other had been when they'd broken up the _first_ time. Not even their trial separation before their divorce had had them not sharing any words for more than a week or two at a time.

But of course, Bickslow wasn't oblivious to that fact, too. And Lucy almost making a point of _not_ talking to him had seemed to happen around the same time Jace had told her that he was in fact dating someone else, so Bickslow knew all too well that Minerva had indirectly caused him and Lucy to grow apart. He didn't blame Jace for telling her, though, nor did he blame Minerva for somehow finding herself involved in it, because if anything, he'd involved her by continuing to date her.

Bickslow just hated it. He'd had a feeling it had been wishful thinking for him to _always_ be a big part of Lucy's life, but he hadn't really expected things to change so quickly. It had barely been two months since he'd been dating Minerva.

Still, Bickslow couldn't help but look forward to actually talking to Lucy, even if it was about Jace and how they'd deal with the ball of problems that he had suddenly become. He missed talking to her, and he missed the stupid apartment, too, so he was looking forward to picking his kid up for a change again.

And then as far as Jace went, Bickslow only hoped to get something good out of having him for an entire week for a change. Maybe he'd be able to get something out of him, or maybe he'd be able to get through to him. With a week, Bickslow was sure _something_ would happen. He just wasn't sure what yet.

What he was sure of, though, was that Mondays were fucking horrible. Everything bad seemed to happen on a Monday.

* * *

 _ **A/Ns:** Been a while since I posted this. Whoops. But, you know, other stories to write and busy with uni. Blah. _

_Anyway. This is about halfway through at this point, surprisingly. The next chapters should be interesting, since Jace becomes more than problematic for his poor parents. I'm pretty excited to write them..._

 _It just won't be for a while, since until the middle of November, I'm swamped with studying for my exams. I'm inclined to spend a little more time on this just because it's short, but it's strangely not the easiest for me to write, for whatever reason. The only reason I managed to finish this today was because I was **so** over studying hormone systems for the day and I really needed to write someone who hated anything to do with science - which in this case, is both Lucy and Bickslow in this particular story._

 _On another note, I'm going with Bixerva for the Bix/Minerva ship name. So, yes, Bixerva. Bixerva is a thing because I say so, and yes, I ship this badass couple way too much already._

 _No more rambling from me. Hope you liked it. Please review if you can!_

 _\- April_


	5. safe

_So, I know this isn't one of my more 'popular' stories (not that any of them are lol), but this one is short, and I really want to get it finished so I have less stories to work on overall. There's a note about this on my profile, if you haven't read it already._

 _Anyway, this was supposed to be a lot longer, and not entirely about... Well, you'll find out. But, it was getting a bit long so I decided to end the chapter where it was. Overall, it doesn't really do much. I'll probably just be adding an extra chapter to the end. Still, I'm hoping to have this finished by chapter 9 or 10 at the latest._

 _This isn't proof read in the slightest, so I apologise for that. Will I get around to it? Probably not._ _But if you did enjoy it, **please** let me know in a review. I don't want to be one of those writers that threatens no updates unless they get 'x' amount of reviews, but... it's tempting sometimes. _

* * *

Jace's suspension went smoothly, much to both Bickslow and Lucy's surprise. It was mostly spent in Bickslow's shop, since that was really the only place Bickslow could make sure his son was doing the work he was supposed to be doing without taking time off from his job. It didn't help that after two days of just staying in the apartment for all but a couple of hours of each day, Bickslow was just about ready to _strangle_ the kid for being so goddamn quiet. But at least at the art store, he could have a cashier he didn't have to pay (much), and Jace needed breaks from doing his schoolwork anyway so it worked out.

After Jace's suspension came his fifteenth birthday, and then shortly after was the beginning of the winter break. Lucy had Jace that year for Christmas, and Bickslow only ended up having dinner with Minerva's family after she found out he'd had no plans of his own. It might've been the first time Bickslow had celebrated a Christmas without his family and any kind of chaos, and honestly, he'd kind of hated it.

But, he hadn't told Minerva any of that, and when he'd excused himself after dinner with them just to head to his own home, where he'd only proceeded to drink what was left of his tequila and watch the old black and white Christmas movies he'd always watched with Lucy and Chace every year, Minerva had simply nodded and wished him a good night.

Once January came around, Jace was back to school and things went back to being reasonably normal. Lucy got nominated for Teacher of the Year by her students, and Bickslow kept teaching the odd art class at the store and watching Zara when Minerva just wanted an hour or two to herself to unwind. Though even then, with everyone settling back into their usual routines with the holidays passing, Bickslow was never able to accept it all as normal. He'd never really been able to be completely comfortable since the divorce had been finalised, but at that point, he was beginning to accept that feeling like something was missing just _was_ normal for him.

The shop was always busy at the beginning of the year. People always seemed to think art was a nice hobby to pick up as part of their New Year resolutions or something along those lines, and would go and stock up on everything they believed they'd end up using at some point in the future – from sketchbooks to professional looking easels, and chalk to the most expensive oil paints. Even the classes that ran were fully booked for the first few weeks of the year, mostly just from all of the parents that had signed their kids up for the beginner art classes over the Christmas break after getting them art kits. But by the end of the third week, the classes started getting smaller and there'd be less new faces coming into the store each day just to spend exuberant amounts of money on supplies they really didn't need.

Bickslow never minded that, though. He'd always enjoyed seeing people be excited and enthusiastic about all of it, even if most of the time it didn't last for long. Part of the reason he'd started running the classes was because he'd loved seeing how enthralled everyone was when he stood up there in front of them and shared something that had always been able to bring him at least a little bit of joy.

It was on one of the quiet days, just a few days into February when Bickslow decided to leave the shop in the hands of his assistant manager for a few hours to head home for lunch and a little nap. Minerva had invited him to stay over after Christmas but he'd mostly turned her down to avoid having to tell her that he didn't really want to have sex with her. It wasn't really anything personal, it was just that he still felt guilty for even really thinking about being with someone else… That was why Lucy was still the only person he'd been with for the last eighteen years, having turned forty-two just a little before Jace's fifteenth birthday. The last thing Bickslow wanted to do though was upset Minerva by something like _sex_. So… he just said he wanted to take things slow – which he really did, in a way – and she'd accepted that. But still, even if she accepted that 'slow' meant he didn't want to fuck her just yet and staying over really just involved sleeping, Bickslow had struggled to get any sleep on the nights he'd spent there.

As he stepped out of the elevator and into the dim hallway of his floor, Bickslow was yawning into the back of his hand. He'd retrieved his keys from his bag while waiting for the elevator to reach the fifteenth floor so by the time he reached his door at the far end of the hall, he was ready to unlock his door and go straight inside without wasting much time – his keys always fell to the bottom of his bag and sometimes he had to dig around in it for actual minutes.

With his door unlocked, he turned the handle to push it open and automatically reached out for the light switch just beside the frame to flick all of the lights on. Except Bickslow didn't even get a chance to let his brain register that the lights had already been on, and that he'd turned them off and then on again quickly when he'd entered, before he heard two screams and shouts – one of them incredibly familiar – and noticed the two teenagers on his sofa now scrambling to cover themselves.

"Shit, Dad—"

"Jace? Jesus—oh, what the fuck?!" Bickslow couldn't quite tell if he was actually asleep or not when he saw the naked redheaded teenager that had been on his son's lap when he'd first walked in bolt straight for the hall with a pillow barely covering herself to go hide in Jace's bedroom, no doubt. It was just past twelve thirty on a school day, yet here his son was, skipping class and getting laid on his couch. Bickslow couldn't quite tell who was more mortified in that moment between the _three_ of them.

It sure as hell was not the way Bickslow had anticipated finding out that his kid was apparently sexually active. Hell, he hadn't really anticipated finding out _at all_. Bickslow had really been betting on just _assuming_ it once the kid was older, probably once he was married and had his own horrible children… But walking in on him as a fifteen year old? There were just some things that Bickslow really wished he could un-see…

"What the—why the fuck are you here?!" Jace screamed. The back of the lounge thankfully hid him well enough, but being caught naked in his father's apartment when he wasn't supposed to be there at all was traumatising enough. What he was realising though, was that it was incredibly difficult to put on pants without standing up.

"Why am _I_ here? Why the fuck are _you_ here?!" Although, Bickslow seemed to already know the answer to that. "God, just… Put some fucking clothes on for Christ's sake – _both of you_. You've got five minutes," he said, and repressing a shudder from what he'd just witnessed, Bickslow quickly turned back around to pull the door open and escaped back into the hallway to wait for the teenagers to get dressed.

He paced just outside his door while trying to think of what to do. They'd – well, _he_ had, considering Lucy had decided most of it was better coming from an actual male – given them "the talk" years earlier, so Bickslow wasn't really worried about that… But still, he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Did he just pretend it hadn't happened and go on as usual? Or did he tell Jace off for deciding to bring a girl back to the apartment and have sex, when he was supposed to be at school? Honestly, Bickslow was leaning towards the latter, but he wasn't sure if that was the right choice or not.

 _Lucy would know what to do._ Because Lucy always knew what the right thing to do was, no matter what the situation was. And, well… Bickslow figured that she probably deserved to know that their fifteen year old was getting laid instead of learning algebra – and really, Bickslow got how much maths sucked, but skipping class to have sex? He hadn't even done that until _college_.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and quickly dialled Lucy's number – she'd had the same one for the last decade so he didn't even need to scroll through his contacts to find it. He briefly wondered if it was even a good idea to be calling her about it while she was at school, but eventually decided it was worth it, because really, Bickslow just needed some back-up right then. It was just a little after noon, so Bickslow knew that Lucy would either be in her classroom marking papers or in the staffroom having her lunch with all the other teachers. If he'd be risking interrupting a class, he would just be texting her, but alas, since Bickslow knew full well that his ex-wife wasn't in class right then, he was calling her.

Lucy was in fact in the staffroom eating her lunch when her phone started vibrating on the table, much to her surprise. She usually kept her phone in her desk or in her bag during the day, but she'd been trying to organise a museum tour and so she'd been sending emails back and forth with the curator to try and work something out. Seeing Bickslow's name flash on the screen only had her choking on her lunch, and then she was quickly assuring her worried colleagues now offering her some water that she was okay. It had been so long since Bickslow had called her that she honestly couldn't even think of a reason for him to be doing so at all; the last conversation they'd had had been over Christmas, and before that when Jace had been suspended. But even if she was trying to avoid him as best she could after hearing that he'd started seeing someone else, Lucy certainly wasn't going to ignore his calls.

By the time she answered Bickslow's call, it had nearly gone to her voicemail. "H-Hello?"

Bickslow froze for a second when he heard Lucy's voice. It felt like it had been so long since he'd heard even that, and god, did it feel good just to hear her again. He remembered just how much hearing her call his name whenever she got home from work had cheered him up sometimes. Clearing his throat, he shoved the constant longing he felt for her back to the dark corners of his mind where it had taken up permanent residence, and greeted her as indifferently as he could. "Hey, it's… It's Bicks."

Lucy almost felt like laughing for a second. "Um, yeah… I know it's you. I have caller ID, you dork," she said. She also recognised his voice anywhere.

"Oh, yeah… Of course…" He had to ignore the urge to hit his forehead on the wall. _Fuck, I'm a dumb shit sometimes._ Of course Lucy knew it was him.

Lucy waited until she'd excused herself to a quieter part of the staff room – near the pigeon holes – to resume their conversion. She crossed her arm over her chest and stared down at her feet, noticing the tiny scuffs on her yellow leather heels. "So… What's up?" she asked. "I take it you're not calling just to catch up…"

 _I wish I was._ But calling to catch up with her just felt so impossible all of a sudden, now that there was a growing distance between them. Sighing, Bickslow decided to just get on with it and cut to the chase. "Nope. Not even close," he said. "But anyway, did you know Jace has a girlfriend?"

"Uh… No? Jace has a girlfriend?"

"Apparently. Because you know what I just did?" He didn't give Lucy a chance to actually answer it before he continued, "I just got to meet her. While she was topless. And on top of our son. In _my_ apartment."

 _"What?!"_ Lucy's screech was so sudden that all of her fellow co-workers turned to stare at her in awkward silence. She didn't pay much attention to it, however, but she pushed open the door to the empty copying room anyway since it wasn't a conversation she was wanting to have in public. She got along fine with her co-workers, but she rarely shared information about her family and private life with anyone other than those that were closest to her. "Excuse me?" she said once she was alone in the small copying room. "Did I hear that correctly?"

"Yeah, you did."

"So Jace was…"

"Having sex on my lounge? Yup." Bickslow shuddered. "God, now I'm going to need to buy a new lounge as well… Like hell I'm sitting on that now, not after his—"

A slight giggle escaped her then, even if she hated it. "Hey! Don't be making jokes about this, Cha— _Bickslow_ … This is serious!" she scolded him.

It didn't go unnoticed that Lucy had almost called him _Charming_ again, but he let it go. "Okay, I'm sorry…" he chuckled. "But seriously. I need a little help here. What the fuck am I supposed to do?!"

Honestly, Lucy had no clue what to tell Bickslow right then. If she'd walked in on Jace with his mystery girlfriend in her own apartment, she'd probably be calling Bickslow for back-up as well. There were just so many things wrong with the situation already that she didn't even know where to begin, and she barely knew anything about it!

The only idea that Lucy could come up with right then was to go over to Bickslow's apartment to talk to their son together. Because really, there was no way Jace was getting out of it without out _at_ _least_ a talking to. A grounding was possible, but a talking to was inevitable.

"Okay, um, look…" She pulled her lip between her teeth as she hurried back into the staff room to collect her handbag and unfinished lunch. "I'm going to get one of the other teachers to cover my fifth period class, and I'm going to come over, alright?"

 _Come over?_ "W-Wait, Lucy, that's not what—"

"No, stop." She wasn't going to argue with him about it, especially while she was uncomfortably aware of everyone trying to discreetly listen in on her conversation to find out what was going on. They weren't really doing a good job of it. "I'll be there in half an hour, and then we'll… We'll deal with this."

"Well, alright then…" Bickslow knew when he was defeated, and right then, he was. He didn't quite like the idea of Lucy leaving work early to help him deal with their son, but if that was what she wanted to do, then that was what she was going to do.

Thankfully, Lucy had no trouble getting one of her fellow teachers to cover her fifth period class with the seniors. One of the other history teachers, Macbeth, had agreed to take the class after Lucy had offered to mark all of his students' papers for the following week. And when asked where she was off to in such a hurry, she simply explained that it was a family emergency of sorts.

It wasn't _entirely_ a lie.

* * *

By the time Lucy was getting to Bickslow's apartment, Jace's _friend_ had already been sent home – or, more accurately, she'd bolted out the door as soon as she'd gotten her clothes back on. Bickslow hadn't really been that worried about it. Jace was the one he had to deal with, not the girl his son had been sticking his dick into – the one named Claudia, apparently. Claudia's parents could deal with her themselves once they'd found out she'd been skipping school to have sex. As far as Bickslow was concerned, all he had to do regarding that was get Lucy to call Claudia's parents and tell them… Because he sure as hell wasn't going to. It probably sounded less creepy for a woman to ask whether a teenage girl had been on some form of birth control or at least had access to a 'Plan B'. That was how Bickslow saw it at least.

Still, by the time Lucy was there and bursting through the door (an act that did later make her feel just a little embarrassed) and then letting herself straight into Jace's room down the hall, the teenager was only falling out of his computer chair in shock. Bickslow had just been leaving him alone so he'd just assumed they were ignoring things and just moving on (oh, how Jace had hoped). But now his mother was here?! She was the last person Jace had expected to be seeing that day.

" _Mum_?! Why the hell are you here?!" Jace shouted as he scrambled up from the floor. It might've been the first time he'd ever actually fallen off his chair, but then again, he had been swinging back on it when his mother had decided to burst through the damn door and almost give him a heart attack…

Of course, Lucy didn't feel the need to explain to her son why she was there (it was pretty obvious, wasn't it?). And instead she just pointed to the other end of the hall, where the rest of Bickslow's apartment was, and shouted, "You. Living room. _Now_."

Jace was smart enough not to argue then. In his fifteen years on that planet, he'd learned that his mother was not the type to yell, not even when she mad. As far as Jace could tell, Lucy just didn't deal with her anger _verbally;_ growing up, it had been a rare occasion for him to hear his parents arguing. And even if they did argue, it was never over anything major, and was usually just Lucy scolding Bickslow for doing something stupid. Instead of yelling though, Jace had discovered many years earlier that his mother wrote out her frustrations. Until he'd come across a file in the cabinet dedicated entirely to short stories where she wrote about blonde middle aged women poisoning their blue-haired moronic husbands, or removing their manhood (that particular story had had Jace shivering in terror) or even their tongues in some cases, Jace had thought his mother was the nicest and kind-hearted person in the world. Of course, he still did think that for the most part, but it was clear to him that she also had a bit of a dark, twisted, and evil side to her.

Still, if Lucy was yelling at him, then Jace knew he was in big trouble.

So silently, he got up from his desk chair and ventured out into the living area with his mother behind him to see what was awaiting him. When he saw Bickslow sitting at his own desk on the far side of the room, busy whittling a dangerously sharp-looking _stake_ from a small chunk of balsa wood, Jace realised that it was probably going to be worse than he thought.

" _Sit_ ," Lucy commanded, and then Jace did just that, taking his seat in the middle of the sofa and then crossing his arms across his chest and making it incredibly obvious he didn't want to be there right then. "Now, do you want to explain yourself?"

He shrugged. "Not really."

"Wrong answer," Lucy snapped. Then, calmly, she said, "So I'll ask you again: do you want to explain yourself?"

It was really the last thing Jace wanted to do. As far as he was concerned, he didn't really owe anyone an explanation for anything. But… His mum was kind of terrifying right then and he didn't think he'd get away with saying no again. Sinking further into the lounge and pointedly looking away, Jace mumbled, "I don't see why I have to."

"You don't… You don't see why you have to?" She couldn't help but laugh, almost mockingly at that. Was Jace actually serious? She turned to Bickslow for some support though, because aside from the fact that he obviously knew more about it than she did (he'd walked in on it, after all), they were still damn _parents_ , and regardless of the fact they weren't together anymore, they were still supposed to deal with that kind of shit together. "Bicks? You wanna help me out here?"

"Uh, nope?" Help, he most definitely did _not_ want to do. Bickslow was still trying to get his eyes to stop burning.

"Of course not…" She was alone then. Just perfect. But, Lucy couldn't just chicken out like Bickslow had. Someone had to deal with the kid, and that someone was obviously her. "Jace…" Sighing, Lucy stopped her furious pacing in front of the T.V. and sat down on the edge of the coffee table in front of her son. She didn't think yelling as going to get her anywhere, no matter how mad and _disappointed_ she was in her son, so she tried another method. "Okay, kid—"

"Stop calling me a kid," Jace snapped. "I'm not a kid." It was bad enough Bickslow did it.

"You're right. You're not a kid. I'm sorry," she said. "Now, are you at least going to tell me why you decided to skip school today?"

…Well, maybe he could answer that much. He'd never skipped class before, so maybe they'd let him off the hook for doing it that day. Shrugging, Jace mumbled, "Didn't feel like going."

"You didn't feel like going? Jace, sometimes I don't feel like going to work but I still go."

 _Yeah, good for you, Mum._ The difference was that she'd chosen her job. He had no choice in going to school.

Jace only shrugged again and kept doing his best to avoid looking at her, mostly just because he already knew that she was disappointed in him – why, he wasn't even sure, to be honest – and he knew that if he _saw_ how disappointed she was, he'd just feel guilty. And he didn't want to feel guilty for something he had no reason to.

It was becoming increasingly clear to Lucy that Jace had no intentions of sharing anything with her – or even Bickslow for that matter. And, well… She was already inclined to just let all of it slide so they could all just move on and get it all behind them. And regardless of how mad she'd been when she'd first stormed into Bickslow's apartment, Lucy _really_ didn't want to be having to sit there and ask her fifteen-year-old son just why the hell his father had walked into his own apartment to find him having sex on his sofa. It was not a conversation she wanted to be having in the slightest. But… As uncomfortable as everyone in that room was, there were at the very least just a few things she really did need to know.

So, she decided to just get on with it.

"Look, I know that you don't want to talk to me about it – and trust me, I don't even really want to be _asking_ you about it…" Lucy began, sitting forward slightly and clasping her hands together in front of her knees. "Because, well… I get it, strangely enough. I mean, you're… growing up, and… And you're not a kid anymore, like you said…"

"Oh god… Mum, please…" Jace groaned. She was really going there, wasn't she?

Not even the uncomfortable heat on her cheeks or her son's protests were going to stop Lucy from continuing – and her inner _mother_ was really just screaming at her to keep going anyway, since it was really her job to embarrass the hell out of her children. "But… But at least tell me you were, you know… _Safe_?" Because aside from the fact that she was way too young to be a grandmother, Jace was way too young to be a father.

If he'd had half a brain to use protection, then Lucy would probably be able to just move past it.

Unfortunately for Lucy though, that hadn't exactly been the case… And now Jace was beginning to feel guilty anyway. It hadn't really occurred to him until then, and he would most definitely agree that he was way too young to have a kid of his own.

"I… I don't remember, okay!" he snapped. There was no way he could actually admit to his parents that he'd done it without wearing a condom, and as far as he knew (well, he hadn't asked), Claudia hadn't been on the pill. "It just… It just happened, okay!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Bickslow blurted out. Of all the stupid things his son could do… " _'It just happened.'_ Kid, we've all used that excuse at least once."

"Will you quit calling me that already?"

"When you prove you can act like an adult, maybe," Bickslow responded. He got it, Jace was fifteen and he really wasn't an actual 'kid' anymore. But when he goes and does stupid and irresponsible things like that, then Bickslow will still keep calling him that. Although really, ' _kid'_ was a whole lot nicer than ' _dumbass'_ , and that was usually what Bickslow wanted to call him.

Jace clicked his tongue as he sat back into the lounge with a huff. He might've told Bickslow to stop being an asshole if his mother hadn't been sitting right in front of him. Besides, he probably didn't have anything to worry about anyway, since it wasn't like he'd actually _finished_ , what, with Bickslow walking in and ruining it. Still willing to defend himself and just say enough to get his parents off his back, Jace added, "It's not like it'll matter anyway. I didn't—" He bit his tongue before he could say too much. "Bicks got here, so it doesn't matter."

Lucy sighed into her hands, and Bickslow only scoffed as he got up from his desk to carry the dustpan with wood shavings in it over to the trashcan in the kitchen. "And this is why you shouldn't skip class," he muttered. "Because if you actually went to school, you'd have learned that you can still _technically_ get someone knocked up _without_ blowing your load in her." Although the fact that it was _incredibly_ unlikely wasn't important right then.

"Bicks… I don't think that was necessary…" Lucy murmured, noticing how _mortified_ their son suddenly looked. That was something he could've explained later on.

"Really? Because I don't think him skipping class just to get laid was necessary either, but here we are!"

As far as Lucy could now tell, the part of the conversation where Jace was needing to be involved was over. Clearly, there were a few more problems that had arisen – ones that Lucy really couldn't help but worry about – but for the time being, Lucy thought it would be best if things calmed down. What was done, was done. There was nothing they could do about the past - not really, anyway, but certainly not at that exact moment.

Softly, seeing just how much Jace wanted to be somewhere else, Lucy said, "Jace, you can go back to your room now." And once again, it wasn't a time where he needed to be told twice. He took the opportunity to leave and a few moments later, his door was heard gently slamming down the hall.

Bickslow slowly stepped towards the lounge until he was standing opposite Lucy and was gripping the backrest with his hands. Since she'd stormed in not that much earlier, it was the first time it had been quiet… and in a bad way, as well. When he'd been waiting for Lucy to get there, it had been just a silent, but Bickslow had enjoyed it, simply because he hadn't had any idea what to say to Jace, and he'd really had no interest in doing so. But that time… There was just so much more hanging in the air around them, and it was making things uncomfortable.

And as he just stood there, watching as Lucy didn't so much as move an inch from where she still sat on his coffee table with her head down and arms shielding her face, Bickslow was remembering that it was the first time he'd even seen her in what felt like an eternity – although in reality, it had only been weeks. And honestly, Bickslow didn't think he'd ever gone more than a month without seeing her, not in all the years they'd been together, at all. But now… it had been nearly two, and god, did that just make him miss her even more.

"So… The first time we see each other in… what? Two months? Let alone talk to each other… And it's because our asshole kid decided to have sex," he tried joking lightly. He'd always hated seeing Lucy so worried and tense. Part of him wanted to just walk around there to work his fingers into her shoulders to get rid of all that tension she was holding in them, just like he'd done almost every day after she got home from work, but he knew he couldn't do that then. Still, he hadn't been able to just stand there in silence. He'd had to say something to ease it, and the small laugh that came from the hunched over blonde before him made the awkwardness of it all just a little bit worth it.

As far as Bickslow was concerned, hearing Lucy laugh – or even just see her smile – could make anything worth it, and almost every situation better.

"Yeah, I suppose that's true…" she muttered, sitting up slowly then. "Says a lot about us as parents, doesn't it? Although we are divorced as well, so I guess it's no surprise that our son has turned out the way he has…"

Bickslow frowned. "Hey, come on…" he whispered. "We didn't… This isn't our fault." _Or it's not yours, at least._ He supposed that _he_ was partly to blame for how Jace had turned out over the last few years, but Lucy definitely had nothing to do with how much of an ass he'd started to turn into over the last few years. "Jace is just…" He shrugged. "He's just doing what _all_ teenagers do. Babe, I'm pretty sure it's a rite of passage for them to be total fucking nightmares."

"Yeah, maybe…" Lucy wasn't convinced, of course. It was supposed to be her job to make sure Jace had everything he could possibly need, no matter the situation, right? It was supposed to be her job to make sure he didn't do dumb things like have unprotected sex at just fifteen. Lucy couldn't help but feel like she was at least partly to blame for it happening.

The heavy silence returned, and once again, Bickslow was left just staring at the woman and racking his brain for something to say. And he'd been about to ask her just how she'd even been lately, because he hated being so far from her yet so painfully close, especially right then… But then Lucy was getting up from the coffee table and smoothing her hands down her skirt, and saying, "I should probably just take him home now."

"Oh…"

"I don't… I just don't know what else I'm supposed to do right now. And I don't think Jace will be saying anything else for a while either…"

"I suppose not…" Bickslow mumbled. "I'll, uh… I'll go get him for you then."

All he wanted was to be able to sit down with her and talk to her, even if it was just for a few minutes, but that seemed to be impossible those days. And the longer that went on, the more it began to hurt, because Bickslow knew that it wouldn't be long before they really were just like every other _normal_ divorced couple who just didn't even know how to be in the same room anymore. And that honestly terrified him.

Still, as far as that situation went, Lucy had already shown she was capable of handling it far better than he could, so he wasn't even going to think of arguing with her. Jace going back home with Lucy was just going to be best for everyone – or at the very least, it was going to be best for Jace, and Jace always had and always would come first… Even if Bickslow really did want to strangle him sometimes.

After telling Jace to get ready to go home with Lucy, Bickslow returned to the living room and stood awkwardly by his fish tank while he awaited his son. He'd lost another one of his clownfish just a few weeks earlier – the second of his original to go – so he knew the others weren't going to be far behind.

Thankfully, it only took Jace a minute to get his belongings sorted, so when he came out into the living area with his backpack on and head down, still not willing to look at anyone, Lucy opened up the apartment door and made room for Jace to get through. "Have you got everything?" she asked.

Jace nodded, and just kept walking straight out the door and into the hall.

Lucy sighed. "Well uh, I guess that's it then," she said. "I still need to get back to the school to get some papers out of my desk… But thanks for calling me, by the way."

"Didn't really know what else to do, to be honest…" Bickslow shrugged.

"Well, thanks anyway. I'll, um… I'll see you… whenever, I guess…"

"Yeah…"

And then she left, closing the door softly behind herself and Bickslow was left staring at it, wishing that Lucy had said anything else. Because in his eyes, _whenever_ was close to never. And he hated that.


	6. regrets

**_(Of course I had to post this when FFN was being stupid and not sending out notifications... Of course I did.)_**

 ** _Edit: Still on hiatus. Just re-uploading this chapter for those that missed it while the FFN updates were broken._**

 _I managed to get this one finished over roughly a day (well, two afternoons/evenings), which I'm reasonably proud of. Shorter chapters like these are easy for me to work on right now._

 _Anyway. Still trying to get this one finished as fast as I can. At this rate, there's a maximum of two more chapters, and a possible epilogue. Depending on how the next part goes, it could either be one or two more chapters. I'm not too sure yet. Hope you like it though! And please review if you can (I know not many people like/read this one, but eh, it's kind of fun to write)._

* * *

Thankfully, Claudia wasn't pregnant, and Jace was probably the most relieved out of everyone. Lucy had been glad, of course (she hadn't wanted to be a grandmother before she even turned forty, thank you very much), but Jace… Well, Jace had really, _really_ not wanted to be a dad just yet.

Once all of that had blown over, Lucy tried her best to make sure Jace went to school, even going so far as making a point of riding the subway with him each morning to at least know he was actually leaving the apartment each morning – Lucy often left before Jace had to leave for school, so she was rarely around to lock up herself.

As for Bickslow, though… Bickslow just did what he usually did. He worked. And moped. And went on dates with Minerva and looked after Zara at the store every so often. For the most part, everything went back to _normal_ , just like they always did.

It was a Saturday night though, and Bickslow's apartment wasn't awkwardly silent as it usually was. Jace was still hiding in his room and avoiding his dad as usual, but out in the living room, the sweet sound of Zara giggling and playing on the floor and Minerva helping get dinner ready was what Bickslow was being treated to. Minerva had, of course, been over to Bickslow's apartment plenty of times in the few months they'd been dating. But she'd only ever been there a handful of times while Jace was there.

Bickslow was taking his frustration out on the carrots that were about to go into the roasting pan when he replied to Minerva's earlier question about the _Jace and Claudia_ situation. He hadn't had a chance to update her on it until that evening, having not spoken to her for a few days – he'd been busy with the store and she'd been finishing another assignment for her course. It didn't help that he hadn't even found out about the situation himself until Lucy had messaged him that morning, under the assumption that Jace wasn't going to tell him himself, which she'd been right to assume.

"No. She's not knocked up. _Thankfully_ ," he answered, dropping a handful of the halved-carrots into the pan.

Minerva nodded. "That's relieving to hear, to be honest."

"Tell me about it," Bickslow scoffed. "I'm still trying to get over the fact I fucking walked _in_ on them."

"Bicks…"

He grimaced instantly. "Right. Language. Sorry." Sometimes Bickslow forgot he had to be a little more _civilised_ around Minerva, mostly because Zara was always nearby. Looking after her in the store was one thing, because she was usually sitting on his lap or behind the counter and he _couldn't_ forget that she was there. But when she was sitting on his living room floor, off in her own little world… It was different then. This was home ground for Bickslow, and he was so used to not having a toddler there, that it was strangely easy to forget about her.

"It's okay," Minerva said. "She hears worse from her uncles, surprisingly."

Bickslow huffed a laugh. He'd met Sting and Rogue a few times before, so he really didn't doubt that Zara had heard worse. Far, _far_ worse.

"Anyway though…" Minerva let out a sigh before she turned back to the stove to take the potatoes that had been boiling off the heat. "Do you know if Jace is still seeing her? The girl, I mean?"

"Claudia? I fu— _seriously_ hope not."

"How come?"

"Because I don't want to be scared of walking into my own home to find those two on the damn lounge again." He was still having nightmares about that. "Besides, if those two are still together – not that I'm even sure they were to begin with – then I'll probably be ending up a grandfather a whole lot sooner than I would like. They're kids, and they're morons. It'll happen."

Minerva shrugged. "He's fifteen, Bicks. He's not a _kid_ anymore," she mumbled. She knew that Bickslow didn't get along with his son, but sometimes, after hearing the way that Bickslow talked about Jace, Minerva was only surprised that Bickslow didn't know why Jace hated him so much. At least that was the way she saw things.

"You sure? Because he's sure as hell not an adult."

"No, he's a teenager. That doesn't make him a child, though." Bickslow didn't do a very good job of hiding his scowl when he glanced back to her, and Minerva tried not to be offended by it. _I'm only trying to help, damn it._ She shook her head as she carried the strained boiled potatoes over to the counter Bickslow was working on, then continued as she began to slice each of them in half, "Besides… If he _is_ with Claudia, and he does continue sleeping with her, then what's the big deal?"

" _What's the big deal?_ What's the…?" He almost couldn't believe he was having that conversation right then. Pointing to the back wall of the kitchen, where the hallway wrapped around and Jace's room was, Bickslow kept his voice steady and quiet as he argued, "The big deal is that he's bloody _fifteen_ and he should have more important things on his mind than getting laid. Like his damn homework, for example."

"He's going to do it whether you like it or not. Do you not understand that?" Minerva shrugged again. "It's just sex. It's really not that big of a deal. I was only fifteen when I had my first time, you know. And as long as he's being safe, then really, I don't see what the problem is."

"Being safe means fuck all. _He_ is the living example of that." Jace hadn't been planned at all. Lucy hadn't wanted kids until she'd finished her master's, and they'd both known that waiting would've been far better at the time. Even with condoms and Lucy's birth control, she'd _still_ ended up pregnant, so Bickslow couldn't exactly be okay with his teenage son going out and doing the exact same thing he had done. He just didn't trust it enough, not for Jace, regardless of the fact that in all the years he'd been with Lucy, they'd only ever had one pregnancy scare following Jace (although admittedly, that particular event had ended up being more disappointing than relieving).

Minerva sighed as she walked around the disgruntled man to place the boiled potatoes in the roasting pan, laying them out amongst the carrots. "You still can't control him, though," she pointed out kindly. "He's not a child anymore whether you like it or not, so it's about time you stop treating him like one."

Bickslow dropped the knife back down on the counter quickly as he snapped, "Please do _not_ tell me how to raise my own son. I've been doing this a whole lot longer than you have." Fifteen years of parenting to her four at best. He wasn't there telling her how to raise Zara, so what gave Minerva the right to tell him what he should and shouldn't be doing with his son? Bickslow realised his mistake as soon as the words have left his mouth though, and he was instantly feeling the guilt wash over him as he watched Minerva nod and step back from the counter, grabbing the tea-towel to wipe her hands. "Fuck, I didn't… I didn't mean that," Bickslow tried quickly apologising. "Minerva, I'm sorry. I am."

She was hesitant to accept it, naturally. Minerva would be lying if she said she wasn't hurt by it all – by Bickslow's earlier responses, and how he'd been snapping at her all afternoon. But… She could, admittedly, see where Bickslow was coming from. At least to a certain extent. She liked to think that, had the situation been reversed, she'd probably have taken it the same way Bickslow had. She would've been pissed as all hell had she gotten home in the middle of the day to find Zara with some boy she shouldn't have been with. But Minerva also liked to think that she would've been a little more accepting of her child's decisions, too. It helped that she'd been there, but had it been Zara, Minerva knew she would've at least tried to be supportive – make sure that Zara knew everything and had everything she needed to be safe. That was her job as a parent.

But Bickslow though… Minerva still couldn't help but think he was being too harsh with Jace. He was trying to be too controlling. And maybe the sole reason she could see that in him, was because her own parents – her father specifically – had been exactly the same. She knew that feeling of wanting to do something just out of spite all too well, and from what Minerva knew of Jace, from what Bickslow had told her, he was the exact person to do something like that.

And she cared about Bickslow a lot. Five months together and she was seriously wondering if her heart had betrayed her again and she'd let herself care about him a little too much. She didn't want to see him struggle with Jace.

Still, maybe Bickslow had a point. Maybe she'd overstepped her bounds. Maybe she really did have no right to tell him how to parent his own son.

"It's… fine, I suppose…" she eventually mumbled. "I was just trying to help."

"I know you were," Bickslow sighed. He reached out to gently cup her face and tilt her head back up to look at him. "But I mean it, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… To yell like that."

She gave a weak smile and allowed Bickslow to pull her into his arms, his chin coming to rest on her shoulder after he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head. "I know you didn't."

* * *

With everyone's plates finally dished up at a quarter past six, Bickslow carried them over to the table while Minerva wrangled Zara and got her situated in one of the chairs. "Jace, come sit, please," Bickslow said, nodding towards the table as he set the first two plates down.

The teenager had ventured out into the kitchen to get a drink by that point. "I'll pass."

"No, you won't," Bickslow said firmly. He didn't cook roasts at all, but he'd gone to a lot of fucking trouble (okay, it was mostly Minerva's doing) to actually have a nice dinner for once. And Jace was going to sit his ass down and not be rude for just one fucking night. "Now come sit and eat with us."

Jace glanced back to the table where Minerva was still fussing with laying out cutlery and pouring Zara some apple juice, and he didn't bother hiding the disgust on his face when he looked away and had every intention of going back to his room. "Yeah, no thanks," he scoffed. Jace wasn't even sure Bickslow had ever used the dining table once until that point, to be honest. But now here we was, cooking roast fucking dinners. All because of _her_. "Wouldn't want to ruin your nice _family dinner_ anyway."

"Jace, I'm not going to argue with you." He was quickly losing patience with him, however. He tucked his chair in once he'd set the last two plates down – the one for him, and one for Jace, hopefully – and looked back up to the teenager again and began, "So please, just sit down, eat, and then you can go back to doing whatever it is you were doing. I'm not going to ask you again."

"Good."

"Jace…"

Bickslow sighed when he heard Jace's bedroom door slam just a few seconds later. Minerva was uncomfortable, that much was obvious, and that was one of the sole reasons he'd been putting off having dinner together on the weekend. Because Jace… He caused problems. Intentionally or not, sometimes Bickslow couldn't tell.

He excused himself then, pushing his chair back on the patterned rug beneath the table, and rubbed the back of his head as he slowly travelled down the hall. Honestly, _dealing_ with Jace hadn't been his strong suit as of late, so when he reached his son's door, Bickslow was just a little stuck with what he was actually going to do. He was pretty much too old to ground – and even if he did, it didn't stick. And, he'd been such a good kid growing up that he'd rarely needed to be punished for anything. _What did my parents do when I was being an asshole? Oh… They confiscated my bike…_

Well, Jace didn't have a bike. But he had a phone, and a laptop, and headphones. And those were no doubt far more important than eating dinner. So, without knocking, Bickslow opened up Jace's door, ignored his protests, and went straight for his son's phone that was charging on his nightstand.

"Hey! What the fuck are you doing?!" Jace shouted. He shot up from his desk to get past his father and tried reaching for his phone.

Bickslow avoided him, turning himself away before going for his desk next, closing his laptop, and picking it up in his other hand. Jace was absolutely seething by the time Bickslow had left the room again, and he made that absolutely clear as he followed Bickslow out into the hall and then into the larger of the two bedrooms, watching as his belongings were stored in the lockable wardrobe.

"Honestly, what the fuck is wrong with you?!"

That, Bickslow was going to ignore. He shrugged as he stepped past the angry teenager and then back into the hall to return to the table. Jace followed him. "You don't do as you're told, then you get things taken off you. Simple. It's about time you learn what happens when you don't listen, Jace," Bickslow explained. He really did think it was simple. And fair. His son wasn't going to get very far in life if he thought he could just get away with doing whatever he wanted. There were consequences to his actions, and that wasn't something Jace seemed to fully understand.

Jace was more than pissed off, though. The one time the guy decides to be an actual parent, and it's when his new girlfriend is there. It was pathetic. And he was real fucking done with it all. "You're not honestly serious, are you? You're a fucking asshole sometimes, Bicks."

Bickslow bit his tongue. He wasn't going to argue. He wasn't going to make things worse than they already apparently were. "Jace, don't. We have guests."

That didn't stop Jace from continuing to let it all out, though. "You seriously expect me to sit here and pretend I give a shit about you? About _them_? Are you that fucking _stupid_?"

Minerva shifted uncomfortably on her chair before reaching over to put her hands over Zara's ears. "Bickslow, please… Say something…" she whispered. But he didn't. And he honestly didn't even know what he was supposed to say, either.

Jace shook his head before he continued again, "You know what? I'm fucking _glad_ you got divorced." That was when Bickslow looked back up. "Even if _you're_ the reason she fucking cries at night. I hear her all the time. Small apartment, you know. Kind of hard not to hear it. All you did was make her miserable, but you don't even see that, do you? You fucking _hurt_ her, and you're _here_ playing _house_. Fuck you, Bicks. I really fucking wish I wasn't related to you, you son of a bitch."

Bickslow was left staring at the hallway in the silence after Jace turned and left, letting his door slam behind him again.

It was all clear now, though. Why Jace hated him so much. It was because of Lucy, and Bickslow had never once expected her to be the reason. But… It made sense, in a way, and a very small part of him was so damn _proud_ of Jace for feeling that way about his mother, because Bickslow knew how much Jace cared about her, how he'd probably go to any length just to protect her – mainly from _himself_ though, Bickslow realised.

…But the other part of him…

The other part of Bickslow was left in a world of confusion and regret – the latter something Minerva swore she'd seen when Jace had first said what he had. It had been just a flash of it, one that Bickslow had quickly masked, but Minerva had still seen it.

Bickslow had no reason to assume Jace had been lying about any of it, though. Not about how glad he was that they'd gotten divorced, or how he really did wish that he wasn't his dad, or about how Lucy was behind closed doors. But if what Jace had said really had been true, then it broke his damn heart hearing it – more than it already was.

He'd hurt her. The one person he'd been trying _not_ to hurt. The one person in the entire world that he would or _could_ ever actually love… And he'd hurt her by doing what they'd _both_ thought was the best thing for them. Now though, part of him was wondering once again if it really had been the best thing. He'd been able to live with his own misery… But not Lucy's. Especially not when he'd had no idea it was even there.

Finally, Bickslow looked back to Minerva and Zara across from him, and he swallowed the lump in his throat before managing to mumble, "I, uh… I'm sorry… about that…" And he was. He was so fucking sorry that they'd been there to witness all of it.

Minerva didn't respond. Not verbally, at least. She only shot a sharp glare at her dinner date while she continued to comfort her daughter who'd burst into tears as soon as Jace had left.

"Mummy, I wan go home…" Zara sniffled.

"Yeah, I think going home is a good idea," Minerva said softly, though Bickslow caught the lacing of venom in it. He didn't blame her for it, either.

He nodded, and quickly got up from the table to begin carrying the untouched plates back over to the counter. _Do I wrap these up for her to take? No… She won't want that…_ With Minerva picking her daughter up from the chair, keeping her in one arm while collecting her belongings as fast as she could, Bickslow only suspected that she wanted to leave as soon as possible. He still didn't blame her.

* * *

First thing the next morning, Bickslow was knocking gently on Jace's door before pushing it open just enough to request that he collect his things so he could take him back to Lucy's. Bickslow would've taken him back the night before, but he hadn't wanted to ruin Lucy's night, so he'd waited until the Sunday morning. It also gave Bickslow time to stare up at his ceiling all night, questioning himself and listening to his son's words on repeat in his head.

Jace hadn't said a single word to him since his outburst. He hadn't even left his room unless it was to go to the bathroom. Bickslow had returned his phone and laptop not long after Minerva had left, a silent and awkward exchange, and he'd made sure to bring in a glass of water and a plate of food as well. The kid may hate him, but Bickslow sure as hell still loved him, and he hadn't wanted him to go hungry or get dehydrated just because he'd wanted to avoid him.

The drive over to the brownstone had been as silent as it always was. They'd picked up breakfast on the way – Bickslow had mostly just wanted the biggest coffee orderable – and as soon as they'd reached the other apartment and parked just out the front on the side of the tree-lined street, Jace was jumping out with his backpack and heading inside.

Lucy had only just woken up when her front door was being unlocked and Jace was storming in. She blinked in surprise, rubbing her tired eyes as he just walked straight past her and to his room without so much as a hello. Jace wasn't normally due back that early, so Lucy couldn't help but assume Bickslow wouldn't be far behind him. And sure enough, a few moments later, there was a knock at her door and Lucy opened it to find her ex-husband with a box of what she instantly recognised to be some of Jace's things.

"Um… Hi?" She stepped out of the way to let him in, and her brow furrowed when the box was placed on her kitchen counter.

"I… I would've called, but…" Bickslow began nervously. _But I wanted to see you instead._ He figured it would be the last time for a long while, at least if his plan actually worked, and Bickslow hadn't wanted the last time he ever spoke to Lucy to be over the phone. He'd wanted to see her in her person. "I thought it would be best to… To do it in person…" he finished.

" _O_ -kay…"

 _Is she really that miserable?_ He couldn't see it then. Confused, yes, and just a little awkward, of course – not that that was new – but to Bickslow, she didn't look like a woman who had been crying all night because of _him_. "Anyway, I…" He wasn't there to question it though, as much as he wanted to. "I don't think Jace should come stay with me anymore. I think… I think it would be best if he stay here."

"What? Why on earth would you think that?" Lucy asked. "What exactly happened?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said. Lucy didn't need to know what Jace had said. That was his burden and his problem alone. He'd caused it, after all. "But… I mean it. I really don't think it would be wise for him to see me on the weekends anymore. I'm sorry if that interferes with anything, but I just… It's not working. He doesn't want to be there, and I really don't want to force him anymore."

Lucy nodded. "I see…" She really did wonder just what it was that had caused Bickslow to come to that decision so suddenly, but she doubted she'd get an answer out of him. "Well, if that's what you think is best…" Lucy shrugged. Her weekends were spent at home marking assignments and making test papers for the most part. Having Jace full-time didn't really bother her much. She'd just liked that Bickslow still got to see him occasionally…"

Bickslow turned for the door behind him and pulled it open. "I'll, um… I'll bring the rest of his things over during the week…" Or he'd get them delivered. He wouldn't have to see Lucy then. _Maybe that's a better idea…_

"O-Oh. Okay…"

For another moment, Bickslow just stood there in the open doorway, and he looked back to Lucy like he had something else to say. Lucy waited for it, but it never came. He only left instead, closing the door softly behind himself.

She went to ask Jace what had happened at Bickslow's after he'd left, but not even her son would tell her. All he'd said was that he was glad he was gone, and that she should be, too.

* * *

Bickslow hated the woods. He was a city boy, through and through. Anything to do with nature, and dirt, and being attacked by flying blood-sucking creatures, Bickslow readily avoided.

Or he tried to at least.

Minerva hadn't talked to him for almost two weeks after Jace's outburst, not that he'd been surprised by it. Bickslow had half expected her to break up with him following it, but she hadn't done – although part of him almost wished she had. The first time he'd seen her after that though, it had been in the middle of the night at his shop, and she'd been telling him to pack a weekend bag, take some time off, and come with her to a little cabin upstate that she'd rented.

He'd agreed to it, for some bizarre reason, so that was how Bickslow found himself laying wide awake in bed, in a cabin, in the middle of the fucking woods. And the worst part was that it wasn't the first time he'd been in that particular cabin, either. He'd been there for his fucking _honeymoon_ – or the first one, at least. The proper one hadn't been until after Lucy had graduated and they'd already been pregnant with Jace. But he'd spent three days in that same cabin in those same woods with Lucy, close to two decades earlier, because Lucy had wanted just a quick getaway to someplace quiet and romantic, and Bickslow hadn't been able to say no.

Minerva didn't know that, though, and he had no intentions of telling her. It was a popular spot, and all she'd been doing was trying to help. She hadn't needed to be a genius to figure out that Jace's outburst at their dinner had caused problems for Bickslow. He'd told her in the car the rest of it, though. That he wasn't going to have Jace for the weekend anymore, that he thought it best he just give Jace – and Lucy – space. It had been a somewhat awkward conversation, especially because Minerva got the impression that her boyfriend had been more upset by having to give his ex-wife space, rather than their son, but she'd done her best to ignore that and focus on the fact that a little time away from the city would allow Bickslow to relax a little bit and let out some of his stress and frustrations.

Those had been her intentions, at least.

But of course, it hadn't really worked, and Bickslow hated that it hadn't. Talking about it all with Minerva had definitely helped, at least a little bit, but that was it. He'd been at the cabin for less than twelve hours before he was back to absolutely hating himself, and wondering just why he was such a fucking horrible person.

And Minerva laying next to him, fast asleep like she had been for hours, only made it worse.

He hadn't wanted to touch her. He hadn't wanted to do anything to her or with her, and he'd been feeling guilty about it for months. But Minerva… She'd wanted it. She'd wanted _him_. And she'd been making that clear for a while, but Bickslow had always done his best to convince her to wait. It had been an excuse, of course, because he couldn't just tell someone he was dating that he honestly had no interest in sleeping with her at all. But Minerva had been patient, and she'd been wanting to help him, and with no Zara or nosy brothers around, she really had wanted to make the most of their peaceful and somewhat romantic weekend away together.

And, Bickslow cared about her. Not as much as he _should_. But he cared about her enough to not want to hurt her any more than he already was by lying to her constantly and generally just being the worst person ever. So when she'd kissed him, as soon as she'd come out of the shower and climbed over him on the bed, Bickslow had kissed her back.

He thought it would've been fine, though. That he could just tell himself that it was only sex and that it wasn't the end of the world; she was his _girlfriend_ and he was supposed to be sleeping with her anyway – and it wasn't like he _wasn't_ attracted her at all, because he was. His heart (and soul, mind) may be with someone else but that didn't mean how beautiful she was had been lost on him, and he had admittedly been just a little speechless when she'd finally let her towel fall behind her…

But then she'd told him that she loved him.

And he hadn't said it back. Because he couldn't – and he _wouldn't_. Not ever.

Minerva hadn't expected to hear it back though. She'd hoped of course, and it had stung a little when all Bickslow had done was stare at her with such a guilty look on his face, but she hadn't burst into tears and broken things off all because he didn't love her back.

Still though, when she'd turned onto her side and decided to go to sleep, Bickslow had only laid there, staring up at the ceiling and just asking himself why he was such a horrible person.

He was using her. He knew that. He'd known that for a while. He was dragging her along for no good reason, other than the fact that he kind of liked the company and that it kept his friends off his back. And Minerva didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve to be treated so horrible by him. She deserved so much better – she deserved someone who would actually love her back and not break her heart, because he was going to do it eventually. That was inevitable.

Bickslow really couldn't help but feel almost disgusted, too. Almost like he needed to go and take another shower – or five – to try and feel clean again. Sex wasn't supposed to make anyone feel like that. Nor was it supposed to make someone feel guilty. But that was how Bickslow felt, and it was the exact reason he'd avoiding it for as long as he could.

It was close to three when Minerva rolled over and snuggled up to him, and Bickslow let out a sigh when he looked down to her head almost resting on his chest. All he could think of was how Lucy had done the exact same thing when they'd been there sixteen years earlier. The only thing that was different was what kept Bickslow awake. Back then, he'd just been too damn happy and excited to sleep.

Now, Bickslow wasn't sure he had anything to be happy about.

* * *

Come Sunday afternoon, after two and a half days of having no cell service, Bickslow was turning his phone back on once he'd arrived home to see what he'd missed. That was when he found twenty-six missed calls from Lucy, and three from a number that he later realised to be the hospital.


	7. apologies

_**A/Ns:** I'm weak. Don't shoot me. My hiatuses always fail after a few weeks. Shouldn't have really expected this one to work either... _

_Anyway, I've mostly gotten over myself. I mean, the entire hiatus was only because I was fed up with how you have to almost beg for feedback to get more than one word on here (or on any site, tbh - but ffn does seem to be the worst in my experience). I still feel as if a lot of readers on this site are entitled. Whether they think that or not is up for debate, but at the very least that's the impression they give off._

 _...And still, I'm not going to resort to leaving notes at the end of each chapter saying 'please review!' or something along those lines. It just really bugs me. I don't like having to ask for them. (Here I am accusing half this site for coming off as entitled brats, meanwhile I'm basically saying I'm entitled to more than three to five reviews every time I post something. Wow.) If you want to review, then I'll love you. But if you don't want to? Honestly, no one is forcing you. Just know that I honestly couldn't give a damn about you and whether or not you read my stories. Part of me wants to say just don't even bother reading anything I write if you're not going to even try and leave a review at least sometimes._

 _So, basically, I've gotten over myself. I've gotten saltier. I barely have the time the write as it is, so I certainly don't have the time to get fed up with the numbers on my story. I've really just stopped caring (or so I'm trying to convince myself)._

 _That's enough rambling now. Now, on to the chapter._

* * *

Bickslow arrived at the hospital as quickly as he could. He'd called Lucy first, only for it to go straight to voicemail, and even stopped by her apartment on the way, only to get no answer there as well. He was in a constant state of panic all the way there, and he even lost count of how many times he almost caused a car accident; there were at least three red lights he went through, though. And when he got to the hospital, he didn't even bother paying for the parking – a ticket was the last thing on his mind right then.

He'd gone to the emergency room first, heading straight for the nurse at the triage station. He'd been so manic himself that he'd had to convince the woman there that he didn't need psychiatric help himself or anything to calm him down. Eventually, after giving him Lucy and Jace's names, Bickslow had been sent off to the other end of the hospital to find his son.

He was through the doors to the surgical ward as fast as before. He didn't bother looking around the plush waiting room before he was running up to the nurses station and getting the attention of one of the nurses on. He was out of breath and almost shaking as he began, "M-My son, he… Someone in the emergency department said… I don't know… Is he—"

"Sir, just calm down for a moment, okay?" the nurse said softly. Bickslow nodded, taking in a big gulp of air. "What's your son's name?"

"Jace… Jace Heartfi—"

"B-Bickslow?"

He spun at the quiet whimper of his name, and he felt his heart fall to the pit of his stomach when he saw Lucy slowly rising from a chair in the corner, clutching crumpled up tissues between her hands. Bickslow all but ran across the waiting room, leaving the nurse at the desk, and only stopped once he had Lucy safely in his arms.

He was just so goddamn relieved to know that at least Lucy was okay – or at least she looked like it. Bickslow had no idea what he'd do if anything were to happen to her. But just knowing Lucy was okay wasn't enough to stop Bickslow from feeling like a nervous wreck, because his son was somewhere in that hospital, and Bickslow didn't have any idea what was going on.

Bickslow lifted his hands to her shoulders and then to her cheeks to hold her face between them. She'd been crying for hours by the looks of it, and she still was by the fresh tears rolling down her cheeks, and it just broke his heart even more. "Lucy, what happened? Where is he?"

"I… I d-don't know…" she stammered, shaking her head. "T-They were already taking him f-for surgery when I got here…" It had been so urgent that they hadn't even bothered waiting for her to get there and give consent. Someone might have mentioned a car accident of some sort, but truthfully, Lucy had been too distraught and concerned with finding out if Jace was even _alive_. She was as in the dark as Bickslow was. The only reason she'd found out about Jace being hurt at all was because he'd had marked her as his emergency contact on his phone and the paramedics called her on their way to the hospital.

"You didn't see him?"

"N-No… They wouldn't l-let me…"

Bickslow pulled her back into his arms and let his chin fall to the top of her head. He couldn't imagine just what she'd been going through while he hadn't been there. Not when he should've been there _with_ her. "He'll be fine. He'll be fine…" he whispered into her hair. It was more for his own benefit, if anything, but Bickslow _needed_ Jace to be fine. And if he wasn't, then he'd damn well do whatever he needed to make sure that he was.

* * *

The waiting room of the surgical ward was colder than the emergency department, and that was something Bickslow wished he didn't know. No matter how much the hospital had tried to make the room comfortable, it just wasn't.

They were there for another four hours by the time anyone came out to see them, and the second the doctor had said that Jace was out of surgery and in recovery, Lucy had fallen straight to her knees on the carpeted floor and cried out of sheer relief. The rest hadn't mattered to her; all she'd cared about was that her baby still had a pulse

They hadn't been allowed to see him straight away – the hospital's post-anaesthesia care unit didn't allow visitors unless it was an extreme case, and Jace hadn't been that. They'd known that they needed to wait until he was transferred to the ICU to see him, and at first, Bickslow had been the annoying parent that had asked the nurse at the desk every fifteen minutes if he'd been transferred yet. Lucy, though… She'd only spent the time nervously biting her nails and worrying that something was somehow going to go wrong.

By midnight, Jace had been moved to the intensive care unit, and they'd finally been allowed to go see him. The frosted glass doors to his room slid open, and Jace instantly felt tears welling in his eyes at the sight of his parents rushing over to him. "M-Mum? Dad?"

Lucy was at Jace's side in a second. She had to refrain from wrapping her arms around him completely, and instead settled for cradling his head against her chest. "God, Jace, I was s-so worried…"

"I'm sorry… I'm… I'm r-really… s-sorry…"

"No, sweetheart, no," Lucy said, kissing the top of her son's head softly. "You have _nothing_ to be sorry for."

"N-No, I-I do…" He turned his head in his mother's grasp just to look to his father on his other side, and he pressed his cheek into the open hand laying on the pillow. "D-Dad… I didn't m-mean it… I'm so… so… s-sorry…"

Bickslow was almost surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth. It was the first time Jace had called him anything but his name in months. And just seeing his son right then… Bickslow had no idea where it was even coming from, but Jace was genuinely sorry. And he was fucking terrified, too. But he was, for whatever reason, sorry – presumably for a lot of things.

But Bickslow honestly didn't care about any of that right then. He'd never blamed Jace for saying what he had or acting the way he did, especially not once Bickslow had found out just what it was he'd done to be _deserving_ of that hatred. As far as Bickslow was concerned, he didn't have anything to forgive Jace for, but that wasn't the point right then.

And, just like Lucy opposite him, Bickslow couldn't stop himself from leaning down and wrapping his arms around his son as best he could without moving him and with Lucy still stroking the top of his head softly. "No no no, shhh, Jace. Don't worry about it," he whispered. "You're safe, and you're okay. That's all that matters. You don't need to apologise."

Jace didn't even care that he was almost being smothered by parents. Had he actually been able to lift his arm, he probably would've been trying to hug them back. There had been a moment where he'd been lying on the pavement, staring up at the looming towers on the corners of Third and West Twenty-sixth before his vision that been obscured by all the people on that intersection rushing over to him, where Jace had honestly believed he wouldn't ever see his parents again. And that had positively terrified him.

It wasn't like he'd seen his life flash before his eyes or anything. He'd just realised how much of an asshole he'd been, to his father specifically, and he'd hated the thought of his last words to Bickslow being that he wished they weren't related. He hadn't meant it… Not really, at least.

But for the first time in a long time, Jace was genuinely relieved to see _both_ of his parents.

* * *

Bickslow quietly slid into the room, pulling the glass doors closed behind him to separate Jace's room from the rest of the ward. "I managed to find an open café just down the street. Here," he whispered as he took his seat on the vinyl chair again and passed Lucy one of the styrofoam cups in the cardboard tray. "Cinnamon latte." WG#ig7l f$j4[J[

Lucy smiled softly. "Thank you." The warm beverage was a welcome upgrade from the vending machine coffee she'd been living off since she'd first arrived at the hospital.

"There's a toasted sandwich there for you too, if you want it."

"Not really hungry," she mumbled.

Bickslow bit his tongue, taking a slow sip of his own coffee instead. He knew that Lucy hadn't eaten anything since at least the afternoon before, but he also didn't doubt her when she said she wasn't hungry. He hadn't eaten since he'd gotten something on the way back into the city with Minerva, and he wasn't all that interested in food either. He honestly just felt sick, and not from hunger.

Jace was finally asleep by that point, so the room was quiet apart from the occasional beep from the monitor to the bed's left. Every time Jace had finally been getting to sleep before though, a nurse had been coming in to check on his stitches and dressings from his surgery, or to ask if he was having any extra difficulty breathing, or to check on his IV line. Sleep didn't come easy in the intensive care unit.

It was in fact a car accident of sorts that had put Jace in there, though – a car had run a red light and ploughed straight through and Jace had been in the wrong place at the very wrong time. Severe abdominal bleeding, a stage four liver laceration, two broken ribs and a punctured lung to go with it, and a fractured wrist as well. Or at least that was what the doctors had said. He looked worse for wear, that was for sure, but scars faded and bones healed.

Lucy's eyes had barely left Jace for a minute in the few hours they'd sitting in the small room. It was just about six, but there wasn't a chance in hell of her heading home to get ready for school. They could get a substitute teacher in. She had no doubts that Bickslow would want to stay by Jace's side as long as could as well, but… Lucy had still been sitting in that waiting room by herself for _hours_. Bickslow should've been there _with_ her the entire time, not showing up hours later like _their_ _son_ getting hurt had been an inconvenience for whatever it was he'd been doing.

And Lucy had been trying to just ignore it, telling herself that all that actually mattered was Jace and that he was okay. But it just hadn't worked, and it had stayed stuck in her head all night. At one point, Lucy had even worried that Bickslow had just been purposely ignoring her calls, but she'd never been able to figure out just what it was she'd done to deserve that.

With her eyes still focused on Jace and the mask of discomfort that was etched on his face as he slept, Lucy was surprising Bickslow when she finally whispered, "Where were you?"

He looked to her with an eyebrow raised. "I was just moving my car, and then getting coffee because the vending machines suck… I thought I told you—"

"I meant yesterday," Lucy said. "I called you... So many times. And you never answered."

"I… I know," Bickslow whispered, swallowing thickly to ease the sudden dryness in his throat.

"Did you block my number or something? Or… Or did you just—"

"No!" Jace shuffled slightly on the bed at Bickslow's sudden outburst, but thankfully didn't wake. Bickslow shook his head, inching forward until he was sitting on the edge of the chair. He stopped himself from reaching out to place his hand on Lucy's arm, and instead held onto the padded armrest of her chair. "Lucy, no," he said, softer that time so he didn't disturb Jace again. "I would never do that. You know that."

 _Do I?_ Lucy wasn't sure what she knew anymore, not as far as Bickslow went. "Then where were you?" she asked again. "You should've been here, Bicks."

"I… I was…" Admitting that he'd been shacked up with Minerva all weekend was the last thing Bickslow wanted to be telling Lucy right then. But he couldn't lie to her – he'd never been able to. Bickslow didn't want to hurt her though, at least not any more than he already had by making her wait alone for hours. But even then, Bickslow wasn't going to stop feeling guilty about that any time soon. He knew he should've been there. He _wished_ he'd been there earlier, too. "I was upstate. With… With—"

"With your girlfriend…" Lucy mumbled.

Bickslow winced. "Yeah…"

"Right."

It sounded worse when Lucy said it, but Bickslow knew he couldn't try and defend himself. He had no intentions to, either. And as far as Bickslow could tell, Lucy had every right to be disappointed (and just downright pissed) with him. He deserved it. "W-Well, I, uh… I had no reception up there, so I… I had my phone off all weekend," Bickslow explained. "But I turned it on as soon as I was back home, and I came here as soon as I could, I promise you. You have no idea how much I wish I'd been here earlier. Lucy, I'm sorry. I really am." He'd probably never be able to apologise enough for that. He'd probably never stop feeling guilty about it, too.

Lucy finally tore her gaze away from Jace to look Bickslow in the eyes. He was genuine, that much Lucy could see. But even if Bickslow really was sorry, that didn't change the fact that he hadn't been there. He'd been with Minerva, lost in his own little world with his _girlfriend_ , and that stung – not just because Lucy hated that she'd been alone when she'd really just needed Bickslow to have been there, but also because she hadn't known that his new relationship was so serious that they were taking little trips together.

Still though… What was Lucy supposed to do? Nothing, really. Bickslow's actions over the last several weeks had made it quite clear that Lucy wasn't going to be a large part of his life like she once and always had been, and maybe… Maybe that was just for the best, despite how much Lucy knew it was going to hurt to actually _accept_ that, once and for all.

With a gentle nod, Lucy didn't know what else to do or say other than force a small smile as she lifted her hand just to move Bickslow's own from her chair – a simple movement that Bickslow knew wasn't simple in the slightest. "Well, you're here now. That's all that matters, I suppose," Lucy whispered.

* * *

Jace watched Bickslow where he sat slouched in his chair, eyes closed, for a few moments before he finally found it in himself to hoarsely whisper, "Dad?"

It was just loud enough for Bickslow to hear, and he peeked his eyes open to find Jace struggling to sit up in his bed. "Hey… Hey, what are you doing…" He got up from his chair to appear by Jace's bedside and then gently pushed him back down onto the mattress, careful not to hurt Jace more than he was already hurting himself. "You want to sit up?" Bickslow asked as he reached for the bed controls hanging on the side of the frame, and Jace nodded reluctantly. He wasn't fond of having people help him, to say the least.

He wasn't allowed to sit up too much, not unless he wanted all the stitches across his abdomen to open up. But the small amount that Bickslow shifted the bed up was better than nothing. He'd been in that bed and for room for barely twelve hours, and already Jace was completely sick of it.

Bickslow waited until his son looked some kind of comfortable again before he asked softly, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a car," Jace laughed weakly, only to regret it when he felt the sharp, burning pain in his chest. It turns out laughter wasn't going to the best medicine for him that time. The best he got from Bickslow was a gentle smile and a shake of his head. "Where's… Where's Mum?" he asked then.

"Sent her home for a bit," Bickslow answered. It had taken some convincing to do so, but Bickslow had eventually gotten through to her. A shower, a nap, and charging her phone had been in order. Even one of the nurses had backed him up on it. "She'll be back later."

Jace nodded. He was glad his mother was going to be home for a little while. Just because he was stuck there, it didn't mean she had to be as well. Although Jace would admit that the constant company was sure as hell better than being alone in there. Still, with Lucy gone, Jace realised that it gave him an opportunity to properly talk to his dad, and right then, that was something he really wanted to do.

It still made him nervous, even if he had a vague memory of blurting out some kind of apology right after his surgery. It was really the first time Jace had even had a chance to speak to Bickslow, and considering how things had been left the last time they'd been in the same room together, Jace really couldn't help worry. And he hated that.

But, an apology was what he needed to give, no matter how nervous and uncomfortable that made him feel. "Dad?" Jace quietly began. "Can I, um… talk… to you?"

"Of course you can," Bickslow whispered. "You don't need to ask, Jace."

Jace nodded. "R-Right…" He couldn't bring him to look up for more than a few seconds at a time before he was quietly beginning, "It's just that… I wanted to…" Not being able to breath properly certainly wasn't helping Jace right then, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from saying what needed to be said. "I'm… I'm sorry," he finally managed to get out.

Bickslow quickly realised what Jace was trying to apologise for – and _again_ , for that matter – but he didn't get the chance to tell him not to worry about it anymore before Jace was continuing again.

"I never meant… What I said before, I didn't mean it…" Jace said. "When I… When I said I wished… that we weren't related…" Tears pricked at his eyes and he shook his head. "I'm r-really, really sorry… P-Please don't hate me…"

It was at times like those where Bickslow was reminded just how much Jace was like his mother. It wasn't really just how alike they looked, with the same chestnut coloured eyes, the same fair hair, and the same little button nose. But it was more to do with who Jace _was_. Because he was a _good_ person, and a _kind_ person, and he had a gentle and pure heart. And he always had been like that, just like Lucy. Jace had just been… a little misguided, perhaps. He'd just been acting like a teenager. But for the most part, Jace gotten all of his best qualities from Lucy, and it was only one of the things about him that made Bickslow as proud as he was. Jace would've been a very different person had he taken after Bickslow instead.

Still, Bickslow could see the good in his son right then, and as much as he hated seeing Jace so worried and upset, it still warmed his heart just a little bit. "Jace," Bickslow began softly, a kind smile tugging on the corners of his mouth as he let out a gentle sigh. "I could _never_ hate you. Not ever in a million years."

"B-But… What I… said… A-And I've been so, s-so horrible late—"

"Shh, shh, don't fret," Bickslow whispered, shaking his head as he pushed the railing on the side of the bed down and sat down on the edge. "Let me tell you a little story, alright?" Jace could only reluctantly nod, and Bickslow let out another sigh and rolled his eyes before he began again, "Mum is probably going to kill me for even telling you this, but… You weren't planned. Not even a little bit. We'd only just gotten married, and your mum had still been at college. We just hadn't wanted a kid just yet."

"Gee, thanks…" Jace muttered somewhat jestingly.

"Oh, shut up. You know what I mean. I know you do." He got half a smirk out of the teenager then, and Bickslow considered it a win. But Jace was still smart, despite how little he showed it sometimes, so Bickslow knew full well that Jace was understanding him. "But… The _second_ we knew that we were having you, we were just so damn happy. Honestly. You weren't a _mistake_ for a single moment. You know, your mum was so excited to be having you that she ran into your grandparents' room in the middle of the night to tell them, literally five minutes after she'd found out herself."

"I bet Grandad would've enjoyed that."

"You have no idea…" Bickslow mumbled. His father-in-law chasing him into the front lawn at two in the morning and shouting at him about getting his daughter pregnant was still not one of his fondest memories, especially since the sprinklers had been on at the time. Although, it had been a nice anecdote for Jude's funeral a decade later. "Anyway, my point is," Bickslow continued, leaning down slightly to give a gentle squeeze to Jace's hand, careful not to disturb the needle going into the back of his hand. " _I_ loved you before we even knew that you were going to be _you_. And I'm going to love you until the day I die – or you die, whichever comes first, really. You seem to be giving me a run for my money so far, though…"

Jace groaned. "Dad… Come on…"

Bickslow couldn't help but chuckle. "Too soon?" He'd just had to slip that in. He hadn't been able to help himself.

" _Way_ too soon."

"Fine, I'm sorry," Bickslow said. He reached up to gently push Jace's hair off his forehead, hand lingering by his cheek as he continued again, "But… No matter how much you yell, scream, and swear at me, I'm still going to love you. Hell, you could try running me over with a damn _train_ and I'd still love you. Because you're my kid, and you're the best thing that has ever happened to me – well, apart from your mother – and I mean that." That was when Bickslow leant down to press a gentle kiss to Jace's forehead – something he hadn't done in years, not since Jace had been a child, but something that Bickslow had wanted to do nonetheless. And in a whisper, he said, "No matter how much you hate me, I'm still always going to be right here, whenever you need me. Nothing will ever change that, Jace."

If Jace had been able to hug Bickslow, he probably would've. For the first time in a long time, Jace was genuinely glad that Bickslow, of all people, was his dad. And he would admit that they had their differences, and part of him really was permanently pissed at the guy for leaving his mother, but that wasn't going to change any time soon anyway.

What really mattered was that Jace knew how much of a shitty person he'd been, especially so to Bickslow, and he regretted that. Truly. Most of it really had been uncalled for, and although he hadn't particularly cared at the time, he knew that what he'd said in front of Minerva and Zara had been at least a little out of line.

"Besides," Bickslow added as he sat up, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips as he brought his hand back to his side. "I'm probably doing my job wrong if I don't make you hate me for _at least_ a few years." Jace shook his head, and Bickslow couldn't help but snicker quietly to himself. He'd ruined it. Totally ruined it. But Jace didn't really mind.

Stretching his arms above his head, Bickslow finally returned to the uncomfortable chair in the corner of the room. He didn't particularly want to admit that he was looking forward to being able to head home for a few hours once Lucy returned. A shower, change of clothes, and his bed (or hell, his lounge for that matter) all sounded more than amazing. For the time being though, his place was right there in Jace's hospital room.

"Dad?" Jace whispered then. "Can I ask you something?"

"Didn't we just go through this a minute ago?"

He shifted uncomfortably on the bed as best he could. So, maybe he had some things to get used to. Like actually being able to go to Bickslow whenever he needed or even wanted to.

But he was curious, curious about something his father had said. And Jace was rarely curious. So, ignoring the little voice at the back of his head, Jace quietly asked, "Do you miss her? Mum, I mean?" Because Jace remembered what they'd been like before, when they'd still been borderline flirting with each other every damn time they saw each other. And it had been months since it had been like that, and it had been hard for Jace not to notice how much _both_ of his parents had changed in that time.

He'd just never said anything, because he'd never really cared.

Bickslow could only stare at his son for a moment. It was not a question he'd been expecting in the slightest, but… Jace had really asked it. He'd really went there. And, Bickslow realised that he'd probably brought it upon himself in the way, since he was the one who had just blurted out that Lucy was still the best thing that had happened to him in all forty-two years on that planet.

He'd meant it, though. Every word of it. There wouldn't be a single day that passed where Bickslow wouldn't see Lucy as the best thing in his life, and he thought the same about Jace, too, even if none of them were really getting along those days. But they didn't need to be getting along for Bickslow to think that anyway.

Did he miss her though? Of course he did. And Bickslow didn't see any reason to lie to Jace about that, even if he didn't particularly want to admit it right then. "Every damn day, kid," he sighed. And Bickslow didn't think that would ever change.


	8. home

_**A/Ns:** Extra long chapter for this one, so that's why it took a little bit longer to get out. I wasn't very happy with this at first, which isn't that surprising since I never seem to like my endings (and I'm not very good at them either, as you've probably noticed), but I ended up reasonably liking this by the end of it. Anyway, it's not edited, because there's really not that much difference between edited and non-edited versions of what I post. I still miss half of my mistakes either way. I'll have a few more notes at the end of this chapter though, so for now, I hope you like it! _

* * *

Minerva had to ask a nurse for directions to Jace's room after she'd signed in as a visitor to the ICU. She was almost surprised they'd even let her in, not being a direct relative of anyone there, but apparently just being a family friend was enough to be allowed onto the ward.

She reached the room at the end of the corridor – the one that Jace was supposedly staying in – and she only stood there for a moment. The frosted glass of the sliding doors were almost completely closed, just a fraction of space between them in the middle. From where Minerva stood, she could just make out the back of a woman's head sitting on the bed. Minerva suspected it to be Jace's mother, judging by the blonde hair that was set in two loose plaits. Minerva had never met Lucy, but she'd seen a picture of her with Jace in Bickslow's apartment – before he'd moved it and hidden it away somewhere, of course.

It didn't really surprise Minerva that Lucy was there right then. It was only the Tuesday, Jace's second full day in the hospital. If it had been Zara in Jace's spot, Minerva knew she'd be sitting right where Lucy was, every second of every day.

She took a deep breath before finally stepping forward, knocking on the white frame of the door and then sliding it open to peek her head through. "Hello?" Minerva said softly.

Jace stuck his head around Lucy to look towards the door, and couldn't help but grimace slightly when he saw Minerva. She was almost the last person he'd expected to be visiting him. Although judging by how his mother only glanced over her own shoulder, quickly realising just who it was standing in the doorway and then looking back down in uncomfortable silence to the set of playing cards on the adjustable table, Jace suspected that he wasn't the only one who hadn't been expecting Minerva to visit.

The only reason Lucy even knew what Minerva looked like was because Jace had shown Lucy the woman's profile page. She'd really just wanted to know what the potential mother-in-law of her son looked like. She'd never particularly had any interest in meeting Minerva, though. Lucy hadn't been interested in meeting the _newer_ and _younger_ model of yourself.

But, unknown to Jace and Lucy, it was Bickslow who was the most surprised to see Minerva. Sure, he'd called her the previous evening once he'd finally gone home to shower and get a little bit of rest, but Bickslow really hadn't expected Minerva to actually visit. He hadn't really wanted her to visit, either.

He got up quickly from his chair in the corner, setting his tablet aside to deal with his girlfriend peeking her head in. "O-Oh, uh…" Bickslow glanced back to Lucy still playing Go Fish quietly with Jace. He knew he needed to get rid of Minerva as quickly as possible. Not just for their sake, but for his own sake, too. Bickslow slid the doors almost closed after meeting Minerva just outside the room. "I wasn't expecting you," he said.

Minerva shrugged as she looked down. "I wasn't sure if I should come or not," she admitted. "But you didn't say much when you called me, and… And I wanted to know if you were okay. And if Jace was okay, too, I suppose." Bickslow had told her that Jace would be fine for the most part, and the general gist of his injuries. But Minerva had still worried.

"Oh. Well, he's uh… He'll be fine, I guess," Bickslow said. "His surgery was Sunday night and the surgeon said there was no reason to worry much about anything else happening. They just want to keep in in for a little while longer to make sure his sutures begin to heal, and that his liver can still function properly, I guess. I… I don't really know, to be honest." All Bickslow had really cared about was that his son was fine. The rest had mostly just gone over his head.

"And what about you?" Minerva asked.

"I'm fine, too." He smiled softly for a moment before glancing back to the gap between the doors. He didn't think it was the time to officially introduce Lucy to Minerva… He didn't really want to at all, either. Clearing his throat gently, Bickslow reached out to gently touch Minerva's arm, guiding them just a few steps away from the door and onto the other side of the hall. "Just… tired," he continued, "And permanently worried anyway… But mostly fine."

Minerva nodded. "That's good to hear." She held out the brown paper bag she'd been holding and explained to Bickslow's questioning look, "I was going to bring flowers or something, but then I remembered flowers aren't allowed in the ICU… So I brought some, um… cake."

"Cake?"

"And brownies with M&Ms, because I wasn't sure what Jace would prefer…" The cake was just a simple vanilla and buttercream cake, because you could never go wrong with vanilla cake. But the brownies were chocolate. She didn't even know if Jace even ate things like that, or if he was even allowed to after surgery, but they could always be frozen to save them from going stale. Besides, she'd had nothing else to do at three o'clock that morning, so she'd baked.

Bickslow peeked inside the bag to see the two plastic containers, one with the slices of vanilla cake and the other with brownie cubes. He grinned and leant forward to press a soft kiss to her temple. "These are great. I'm sure he'll love them," he told her. And if Jace didn't, then Bickslow would sure as hell eat them. But he considered that unlikely since the kid had inherited his sweet tooth.

Minerva smiled and gave another small nod. "That's good to hear," she said softly. "But I should probably get going now… God knows what trouble Zara's already gotten into with her uncles…" Not to mention that she could feel how unwelcome she was there right then, but she was trying desperately not to think of that much. But it was still clear to Minerva that she wasn't yet a part of Bickslow's family, not as much as she'd already accepted him into hers.

"Right, yeah…" Bickslow scratched the back of his head while they both stood there for a short moment, with Bickslow wondering if he should at least hug her goodbye, and with Minerva waiting for just something else than whatever it was he was giving her. She realised she would be getting nothing more, and gave a curt nod, taking a step back finally.

"Give Jace my best then," she said.

"Of course." Bickslow nodded. "Thanks for um, stopping by," he added as he turned back for Jace's room. He waited until Minerva had turned the corner in the middle of the hall and she was out of sight before sliding the doors open again.

Lucy glanced over her shoulder as she picked up a card from the centre of the table. "So that was your girlfriend, I take it," she mumbled.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was."

"I see…" She'd hoped Bickslow would've at least waited until Jace was at least out of the ICU to invite his girlfriend to the hospital, but Lucy knew there was no use in complaining about it. "What's in the bag?"

He looked down to where he'd placed it on the free chair. "Cake. And brownies," he answered. "She thought Jace would like them."

"How thoughtful of her."

Bickslow wasn't the only one to catch the venom in her voice, and even Jace grimaced. He really was missing how things had been before. He'd hated it then, but anything was better than seeing them the way they were now. They were bitter and cold towards each other – or at least his mother was towards Bickslow – and Jace was unfortunately in the middle of it.

So he tried forcing a small smile as he looked back to his mother staring at cards in her hand. "So… Have you got any fives?"

* * *

After five days in the ICU, Jace finally got moved out and into the general ward. He'd still managed to get a private room, much to his parents' delight. The weekend had been the most uncomfortable Jace had ever been in his entire life. He hadn't been able to get rid of his mother (she'd even brought the quizzes from a few days earlier with her to mark), and Bickslow had left the assistant manager in charge of the store for a few hours so he'd been there as well. The problem for Jace, though, was that his parents hadn't said a single world to each other all weekend. Bickslow had tried, over and over again, but Lucy had always remained silent.

At one point, Jace had had to refrain from smothering himself with one of the uncomfortable pillows.

Jace had never really thought he'd be on his father's side or actually feel even remotely sorry for him, but after two straight days of his mother being a cold-hearted bitch to him… Well, he'd temporarily changed sides in the whole family drama, that was for sure.

The only good thing that came out of the weekend was his doctor saying that he should be able to go home at the end of the next week. That just made everyone happy.

But, it was only after hearing that that Lucy actually talked to Bickslow again. And it was on the end of the Sunday night, right after they'd both said goodnight to Jace to let him get some rest (or as much as he was going to get in a hospital) and then headed for the elevator together, that Lucy spoke.

"So, um… I presume Jace will be wanting to stay with me once he's allowed to come home…" she began quietly, stepping into the empty elevator beside Bickslow once the doors opened. "You know, since you brought all of his things back before…"

Bickslow was almost sure he'd been imagining her voice. For a moment all he could do was actually stare at her, but then Lucy glanced up to him when he didn't answer and scowled at him, telling him to stop being weird. "Well, I'm just surprised, that's all!" Bickslow defended himself. "You know the last time you actually said a _word_ to me as on Tuesday? Fucking _Tuesday_."

Like Lucy didn't already know that. There was no point in Bickslow reminding her of it. But she just simply hadn't had anything to say to Bickslow, that was why she'd kept quiet since then. It had become all too clear to her that she wasn't as important to him as she'd once thought, so… Yes, she was being petty and making Bickslow realise that he wasn't important to her anymore either. The only thing they had in common now was Jace.

But, Lucy just wasn't even going to bother responding to Bickslow about that. She didn't really see the point. It didn't help that it was bad enough she was essentially going to be having to ask Bickslow for help with Jace as it was. She couldn't take another few weeks off work to stay at home with him. She simply couldn't afford it.

Instead, Lucy only said, "I can take a few days off, maybe a week, but there's no way I'll be able to take any more than that. I'll, um... I'll need you to watch him when I can't."

Bickslow had already assumed he'd be doing that. He would've been fine with having Jace stay with him for the first couple of weeks after being discharged, too. It wasn't like Jace particularly loathed him any more. But if Lucy wanted him with her, then that was fine. Bickslow could still quite easily look after Jace while Lucy was at work. His job had the flexibility that Lucy's didn't.

"Unless you don't want to, of course," Lucy continued before Bickslow could answer, staring at the buttons on the elevator panel that lit up on each floor they reached. "I mean, if you're busy with... Uh, if you're just too busy in general, I guess. I'll just... I don't know. I'll try and get my long-service leave paid out or something."

"Lucy, don't be stupid," Bickslow finally managed to get in. "I'm not going to be too busy for our own son. You know that."

She had to bite her tongue before she made a comment about his new girlfriend's child - the one that she only knew of because of Jace anyway. Lucy only nodded instead, whispering a small, "Well, thank you."

It wasn't like Jace would need around the clock care anyway. It would mostly just be for in case something happened, like if he hurt himself accidentally, or to make sure he didn't take too much of the pain meds that the doctor was going to send him home with, and even just to keep him company so he wasn't left by himself all day. For all Lucy cared, Bickslow could just set him up in an office in his shop studio and look in on him every now and then.

The elevator reached the ground level and they walked silently through to the car park. Bickslow wanted to annoyed that the only reason Lucy was talking to him was because she wanted something from him, but he really couldn't complain. It was a start, and it was better than nothing.

Their cars were on opposite sides of the car park, but Lucy's was closest to the door. Bickslow had no choice but to walk past Lucy's to get to his own car, so he ended up walking her to her car. It was a force of habit for the most part.

Lucy fished her keys from her bag when they reached her car. Bickslow stood with his hands in his pockets, looking around at everything from the dark sky to the granite pavement beneath his feet. "Well, got work in the morning, so I guess I'll just see you tomorrow afternoon or something," Lucy said quietly, pressing the key on the remote to unlock the doors.

Bickslow nodded. "I guess so." He felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket and he repressed the grimace. Lucy pulled the door to her car open and Bickslow smiled quickly and weakly. "Night then. Drive safe," he said.

Lucy only returned a small nod of her own before climbing in and starting her car.

Beginning the walk back to his own car, Bickslow finally pulled his phone out of his pocket. He turned it off when he was with Jace but then turned it back on whenever he was leaving. He'd already glanced at the notifications he'd missed while it had been off that day, but even without seeing who his most recent message was from, he still knew exactly who it was.

It was Minerva. It was always Minerva. Never work, thankfully – his assistant manager was in charge of everything while Bickslow was out, but some things he needed to be informed of. But Minerva... Bickslow got that she meant well, and that she cared about him a fuck ton (way more than he did about her), but she was really, really starting to irritate him. At least twice a day she messaged him, asking him how he was or if anything was new with Jace. And for the most part, Bickslow just ignored them.

He hated that he did that as well. She'd only ever been great to him, and then he was... He was an asshole. He'd been an asshole and a jerk to Minerva, just like he'd always been with Lucy – but that was just who he was as a person, and Lucy had always known that. But Minerva hadn't, and with Minerva, Bickslow just couldn't help but feel like he couldn't even be _himself_ around her.

Bickslow knew that wasn't a good thing, either. Just like how _he_ wasn't a good thing for her. He almost wished he was, or at least that he was a better person, but Bickslow had always known that whatever he did end up having with her, it just wouldn't last for long. It didn't matter that Lucy seemed to actually hate him those days (it was almost laughable to him that as soon as things start looking up as far as the relationship with his son goes, that everything starts falling apart with Lucy, faster than he can catch the pieces), because at the end of the day, he was still always going to cherish her the most. Over anyone, even Jace if he had to brutally honest, Lucy was the most important to him. And Bickslow was just never going to feel anything remotely close to that for anyone else. Not even Minerva.

And after the weekend up in the forest and the cabin with her, Bickslow had known that he was going to need to break up with her. He wanted to, as well, because that would just be the best thing for both of them. But in all forty-two years on that planet, Bickslow had never really broken up with anyone. Not without it being a mutual decision, at least. He just didn't know how to break up with Minerva, and as scared and worried as he was about hurting her, he knew damn well that putting it off was just making things worse and hurting her anyway.

Still... Bickslow knew he wasn't going to be finding the courage and words to willingly and knowingly break his girlfriend's heart that night. So instead, fishing his keys out of his pocket with his free hand, Bickslow only sighed and scrolled through his phone contacts until he found the one he was looking for, and then waited for Minerva to pick up.

Bickslow figured he might as well talk to someone other than the damn cat for a change.

* * *

Lucy liked to clean and make everything all neat and organised when she was nervous. It was a habit she'd picked up from Bickslow in her twenties. But with Jace still set to be discharged on Saturday morning, Lucy couldn't help but be nervous. She was just so relieved to have him finally coming home, but at the same time just so damn worried, and… It really wasn't a good combination.

The last time Lucy had checked the clock, it had been a quarter to twelve, and she'd been dusting the living room and re-arranging cushions for the third time that night. She'd even done a load of washing, mostly cushion covers and towels, and all of it had already been folded and put away or back where it belonged neatly. But even after cleaning the living room, kitchen, the bathroom and laundry, and even her small study area in the corner of her bedroom, Lucy still couldn't sleep. And that was still after baking two batches of cookies as well – one macadamia and the other chocolate mint chip.

There was, thankfully, one other room in her two-bedroom apartment that she could clean. Jace's room needed to be cleaned, because it always needed to be cleaned. Lucy didn't go in there very often though, and the last time she had gone in there, it had been to give him back his clean laundry from just before his accident. She hadn't so much as opened the door since then.

But… Jace was going to be home soon, and he was going to need to have a clean room. A clean room was always nice to come home to anyway. So, fetching an empty washing basket from the laundry, Lucy returned to the short hallway in the middle of the apartment and then pushed open Jace's door.

She almost wished she'd held her breath. Her eyes began to burn and Lucy had to quickly duck into the hall for a quick gulp of fresh and _clean_ air. She liked to say that she didn't go in Jace's room much just to give him his privacy, but it was mostly just because his room always seemed to smell terrible for some reason. Lucy just didn't even know why or what it was that made her son's room smell so bad half the time (it was so much worse in the summer, she'd learnt, but that was coming up soon as well), but Lucy also didn't want to know.

The first thing she did was open up the window in Jace's room, finally letting some much needed air in. She dropped the washing basket in the middle of the floor, and then began stripping the sheets on Jace's bed. God knows how long it had been since _they'd_ been washed. After getting all of the sheets and covers from the bed, Lucy quickly went and put them in the wash, dragging out Jace's laundry basket with her to do later. Then, it was onto cleaning and dusting and vacuuming and then dusting some more.

It was when Lucy was vacuuming though, that she turned and bumped into Jace's desk that was piled high with books, loose papers, and folders. She heard something fall right as she switched the vacuum off, having finished the room anyway, and turned to pick up whatever it was she'd knocked off the desk. Lucy assumed it be just a pen or something, but then she saw the carved blue and purple figure of the Direhorse laying on the carpet, with one of its six legs having broken off.

"Oh no…" Lucy whispered. She crouched down to gently pick up to the small figurine. She hadn't seen that in years, not since Jace had been a child. Lucy remembered Bickslow working on it when Jace had been eleven though. It had been a present for Jace's birthday, not long after Bickslow had taken him to see _Avatar_ for the first time. He'd spent weeks working on it, starting from a chunk of basswood and then slaving over it ever chance he could, slowly getting it down to the rough shape of one of the mythical creatures from the film. He'd put so much effort into the intricate details on the body, and then so much time painting it with all of the blues and purples once everything had been finished and he'd been happy with it.

And, Jace had absolutely loved it. If Lucy thought about it, it had probably been one of the last times she'd ever seen her son truly happy as well.

She sighed as she looked to where the small piece had broken off. It had splintered but it seemed to fit back together easily when Lucy tried putting them back together. Still, Lucy wasn't going to try and fix it. She didn't know how to. All of that kind of thing… That was Bickslow's territory. She'd always taken an interest in the craft, but… She'd never gone as far as actually learning about it. As far as Bickslow and his art went, Lucy had just enjoyed watching it and nothing else.

Still, Lucy didn't want to just leave it broken for Jace to find. She had to fix it somehow – or at least find someone who did know how to fix it. And there was only one person that Lucy knew who could even do that, or wouldn't just tell her to throw it out. Even if it was barely much larger than the size of her hand, it still meant something. Not just to Jace, but to her as well. And it meant something to Bickslow as well. Almost everything he made, drew, or painted meant something to him. He would fix it. Lucy knew he would.

She checked the time on her phone: it was a little past one. Bickslow would no doubt be asleep, so for a moment, Lucy wasn't sure if she should message him then or in the morning – or maybe just wait until she saw him at the hospital next. But, it was late enough that Lucy doubted Bickslow would even hear his phone if she messaged him right then. So she decided to anyway, sending a picture of where the carving had broken as well, just so Bickslow could decide if it really was saveable (she figured it really was, though).

As soon as she pressed send though, Lucy dropped her phone straight back onto Jace's unmade bed, and returned to cleaning – she decided to tackle the desk next, mostly to stop herself from knocking over something else. With her back to her phone, and already beginning to hum a mindless tune to herself, Lucy didn't get to see the small read receipt come up just below her messages.

* * *

Bickslow had been tossing and turning all night when he heard his message tone and his screen lit up his bedroom. He rubbed his hand over his face before reaching out for the lamp on the bedside table. "Who the fuck…?" Bickslow mumbled to himself as he picked up his phone, wincing and having to quickly turn his screen brightness down so he could actually look at his phone with both eyes open.

He finally opened up the message app and was surprised to see that the unread messages were from Lucy of all people. They'd said a few words to each other since Lucy had bitten the bullet and asked him to watch Jace once he was out of hospital, but they hadn't exactly been any words of importance or anything beyond the usual polite things you said to someone whenever you saw them. But for Lucy to be messaging him at one o'clock in the damn morning, Bickslow was really just worried.

 ** _Hopefully this doesn't wake you… I was cleaning and knocked that horse thing you made for Jace when he was a kid off his desk and it broke. I was hoping you'd be able to fix it. If not, don't worry about it. I just thought I'd ask since I know how much Jace liked it when he was younger._**

Bickslow turned his head to look at the picture Lucy had sent. He hadn't seen that damn thing in years. He'd almost forgotten about it, but he had to admit that he was just a little sad that it had broken. It was definitely fixable though.

Bickslow clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth as he stared at the time at the top of his screen for a moment, watching it switch over to twenty-two minutes past. It was late. Obviously. But Lucy was awake, or at least she had been five minutes earlier. And he was awake, too…

And Bickslow didn't even give himself a chance to talk himself out of the stupid idea that had popped into his head, and he was getting out of bed and quickly getting some clean clothes and shoes on, then rummaging through his desk in his living room to find some glue. The drive to Lucy's apartment didn't take long at that time of night, and before it even reached two o'clock, he was knocking on his old apartment door.

Lucy opened just a moment later, only after looking through the small peephole on the door first (she wasn't going to open her door to just anyone in the middle of the night). She'd had to take a few calming breaths and fan her hands in front of her eyes first, but as soon as the door was open, and before she could even ask Bickslow just what the hell he was doing there at nearly two in the morning, he was asking, "Wait, have you been crying?"

"What? No, no… I… No." Lucy shook her head. Admitting to Bickslow that she really had been was the last thing Lucy wanted to do right then. She certainly didn't want to explain why she had been, either. "What are you, um… doing here?" she finally asked.

Bickslow already knew that Lucy wouldn't have told him if she really had been crying anyway. That didn't mean he wasn't concerned, though. He always was, especially when he could see right through her. "I uh… I got your message, and…" Bickslow felt around his jacket pocket until he pulled out the small bottle of glue. "And I was awake, so I thought… I thought I'd just come around now to fix it now…"

"Oh. Right…"

"Although, I mean, it is late, so I should probably just come back in the morning or something and do it th—"

"No, no, it's fine," Lucy said quickly. She gave a small smile as she stepped out of the way to let Bickslow in. "You're already here. You might as well come in."

Bickslow nodded. "Thanks," he mumbled. He stood between the kitchen and the door, spinning the bottle of glue in his hands as he waited for Lucy to come back after ducking into Jace's room. Everything was still the same as it always had been, right down to plates of cookies sitting on the tiny island counter.

Lucy didn't look up as she handed Bickslow the broken carving. "I don't know, it must've hit the edge of the desk before it landed on the floor," she said. "I just didn't want to try and fix it myself, just in case I ruined it somehow…"

"Ah, it's not bad at all. It's nothing a little super glue can't fix," Bickslow said. He walked around into the kitchen to pull the roll of baking paper from the shelf above the oven, and then the scissors from a drawer to cut a small strip off. He glanced up to Lucy as he took the cap off the glue bottle and put a small dab of glue on the broken parts of the figurine. "So, uh… Why are you up so late?" he asked.

Lucy shrugged. "Couldn't sleep. Decided to clean Jace's room for when he's home on the weekend," she said. "You?"

"Couldn't sleep." But where Lucy had been worrying about Jace finally coming home, Bickslow had only been worrying about how to break up with Minerva without being a total dick – although he was beginning to realise that that was just inevitable anyway. Bickslow wrapped the strip of wax paper around where he'd joined the two pieces of the carving back together, then looked around for something to secure it. "Do you, um… Do you have any tape around?"

"Oh, yeah, sure." She finally moved from her spot in front of her small dining table to fetch the roll of masking tape. "Will this work?"

"Yeah, this is fine." Bickslow sighed once he was done and had the tape holding the two pieces together securely. "Well, that'll be dry by morning, so you can probably take the tape and that off before you go to work…" he mumbled.

Lucy nodded, watching as Bickslow put the baking paper away and handed her the role of tape. "Got it."

He was about to just say goodnight and let himself out before he stopped with his hand on the door, and glanced back to her. "You know you can still talk to me, right?" Bickslow said softly.

"W-What?"

"I… I know you seem to want nothing to do with me lately—"

"That's not true…" Lucy whispered.

"—but I'm still here for you, for whatever you need. Nothing is ever going to change that, Lucy," he said. "I'm always just a phone call away." And maybe it was just because he knew Lucy was upset about something, or maybe it was because all Bickslow wanted was for things to go back to something close to how things had been just a few months earlier. It didn't really matter which one it was at the end of the day, because he'd meant what he'd said, and he was thinking that Lucy had forgotten that as they'd grown so far apart so quickly.

He was always going to be there for her, whenever she needed. Because he cared about her.

But, Lucy's only response was a small nod and a simple goodnight. And it wasn't because she hadn't wanted to hear it. But because she just didn't know if she could believe him or not.

* * *

Jace didn't get to come home on the Saturday morning like everyone had been hoping. Jace had probably been the most disappointed by it. He'd really hated being stuck in an uncomfortable hospital bed all day. And the food... Well, the food wasn't really food. Jace had been more than looking forward to eating actual food for a change. Minerva's brownies and cake had definitely helped, though... Even if Bickslow had eaten most of the brownies.

But, when Jace got stuck in the hospital for the weekend, they all just spent their time there and doing what it was they usually did, which ended up being mostly nothing. Lucy read when Jace had nothing else to do but sleep, and Bickslow mostly just sat there in silence. And when they both got kicked out for a few hours at lunch, they both just went home to do their own thing, before meeting back up at the hospital when the visiting hours were open again.

Come Sunday night though, which Jace supposedly being able to come home in the morning, Lucy was left unable to sleep once again. She just kept worrying about something else going wrong with Jace again, and she was scared that he wouldn't ever come home. And at some point, after tossing and turning and getting her legs tangled up in the sheets more times than she could count, Lucy just gave up and pulled herself out of bed and wandered out into her living room to find something to keep herself occupied.

She tried reading for a little while, but only got seven pages into the first chapter of her favourite book before she was back to biting her nails. She thought about cleaning the apartment, but then realised that there just wasn't anything left to clean – she'd barely been there at all over the last two weeks, and the apartment was so small that she'd always had to tidy up every day. And when Lucy had realised she had no papers to mark, quizzes to write up, or any other schoolwork to be done, she even thought about making a cake, but then she'd remembered she'd run out of flour and eggs because she'd had no time to get groceries that weekend. So when Lucy found she had absolutely nothing to do, she just sat there, in the middle of her lounge with just a few small candles flickering around the room so she wasn't in complete darkness.

Bickslow's words seemed to echo in her head as she sat there though. _I'm always just a phone call away._ He'd never had to say it when things had still been good between them, because it had always been something that hadn't needed to be said. When they'd still been friends, Lucy had known that she could always rely on Bickslow, because that was just the way things had been between them.

…But then he'd finally started seeing someone else. And as happy as she was for him, because she wanted _Bickslow_ to be happy… It had just ruined everything _they_ had. Bickslow hadn't needed her for anything anymore, and Lucy had just tried to do the right thing and stop needing him so much. Bickslow had stopped being just a phone call away when he'd started seeing Minerva.

Still though… All Lucy could think of doing right then was calling Bickslow. He was the one person in the world who would be able to understand how worried she was about Jace coming home. And, if she was honest, seeing him every day for the last two weeks had only made her remember just how much she missed how things had once been, not even a year earlier. So much had changed since she'd tried dating Jellal and Bickslow had gotten with Minerva, and Lucy could still remember when she'd once thought that everything would always be the same as it always had been.

Blindly, Lucy reached out for her phone sitting beside her on the cushion. It was later than she'd realised, so for a moment, Lucy hesitated on dialling the number she knew off by heart. _It's way too late to call him._ Not even with Bickslow reminding her that he was always there when she needed him, she wasn't going to call him at a quarter past one. Lucy couldn't even help but wonder if Bickslow would be staying with his girlfriend that night, too, and the last thing Lucy wanted was to have _her_ answering Bickslow's phone for him.

So she texted him instead, quickly typing out a simple _'Are you awake?'_ and pressing send while chewing on her bottom lip. Lucy doubted Bickslow would see it, not when the visiting hours for the general wards started at 7 a.m. and that was when he was going to need to be at the hospital to see if Jace would be going home. So when the little read receipt under Lucy's message didn't come up, and just stayed on _delivered_ , Lucy just let out a little sigh and dropped her phone back down beside her.

Maybe it was just for the best that Bickslow didn't see it. That was what Lucy told herself, at least.

But it was just forty-five minutes later where her former husband was once again knocking on her door in the middle of the night, for the second time in just a few days. That time, he brought two large cups of hot cocoa, one of them with hazelnut syrup, and a pastry bag that smelled like fresh cinnamon donuts. And when she opened the door to find Bickslow there, all she did was silently step back to let him in.

Bickslow had gotten her message. He'd been asleep until he'd heard his horrendous message tone. But as soon as he'd seen it on his lock screen, Bickslow had only pulled himself out of bed, got dressed, and gotten in his car. As curious as he was to know why Lucy had even messaged him so late, for the most part, Bickslow just hadn't cared. He knew from experience that the only time Lucy ever had trouble sleeping was when she was worried about something. The fact that Lucy had even messaged him at all was enough for Bickslow.

Lucy returned to the lounge after letting Bickslow in, bringing her knees up to her chest so her toes curled over the edge of the cushions. Bickslow joined her after a moment, only after turning on a table lamp, and handed her one of the cups of hot chocolate, as well as the paper bag with the still warm cinnamon donuts.

He switched on the lights as Lucy returned to the lounge, bringing her knees up to her chest so her toes curled over the edge of the cushion. Bickslow only joined her a moment later, handing her one of the foam cups and then the paper bag that was filled with the freshly cooked donuts from Lucy's favourite bakery. "I can't believe that place is still open," Lucy mused, taking a sip of the hazelnut cocoa before fishing one of the still warm donuts from the bag, not even caring that she was going to get herself covered in cinnamon sugar.

"Where else are people going to get fresh donuts in the middle of the night?" Bickslow chuckled. No one liked eating stale pastries, especially not when they were a comfort food or a craving – or both. Bickslow knew that it was the former in Lucy's case, just as it always bad been. But then again, there hadn't been a single week when Lucy had been pregnant with Jace where Bickslow had come home at some point to find her with a bag of something sugary from the bakery. As far as he was concerned, it could've very well been a craving. He'd never really figured it out.

Lucy found herself smiling for a moment. "I suppose that's a good point…" she whispered. "But you know…" She took another sip of the cocoa to wash down the dense pastry before continuing softly, "I didn't actually expect you to come here."

Bickslow shrugged. "I didn't expect you to message me in the middle of the night, either."

"Yeah, well… Sorry, I guess…"

"What are you apologising for?"

"For… For making you come out here…" Lucy mumbled. "And for waking you up as well, I suppose…" She shook her head. "I shouldn't have messaged you at all." It was inappropriate. She shouldn't have done it. In fact, it would probably just be best if Bickslow just left.

"Lucy, you didn't make me do anything," he sighed. "I _wanted_ to come here. You message me in the middle of the night asking if I'm awake, and the first thing I'm going to do is worry. Of course I'm going to come and see you. And you didn't wake me up, by the way." Well, the last part was a lie, but that didn't matter. The rest was true.

"Well… Well, you shouldn't have. There's no need to worry about me. I'm fine."

Bickslow took a sip from his own cocoa before mumbling, "You're a horrible liar, Lucy Heartfilia." At least she was when she was talking to him. When she was talking to anyone else, however… Well, she was creative to say the least. But Bickslow could still see right through her every time. Sighing again, he took the bag of donuts back from her to get another for himself, and dusted the already fallen cinnamon sugar off his jeans and shirt with his free hand. "So come on, tell me what's up," he said then.

Lucy shook her head. "It's stupid. Forget it."

"You're worried about Jace, aren't you?" Bickslow guessed. That was the only thing that made sense to him, and given Lucy's lack of response then, Bickslow assumed he was right. "He's fine, Lucy. You know he's fine. His doctor said so himself."

It had always annoyed Lucy that Bickslow was always able to know what was on her mind. She'd never been able to do it for him, though, no matter how much she'd tried. But right then, all Lucy could think was that she should've known better than to try and convince Bickslow that she was fine. It had never worked in the past. And even then, Bickslow was spot on, just like he always was. Because as excited and relieved as Lucy was about Jace being able to come home in the morning, she still couldn't help but worry that it just wouldn't happen again.

"I know that, but… But what if something happens again?" Lucy whispered. "What if he has to stay in the hospital for even longer?"

"Lucy, he won't."

"But he already has," she said. "He was supposed to be home on Saturday morning…"

"And he had to spend just a couple more days there. It's not a big deal."

"But what if it happens _again_?"

"Well, then so be it." Bickslow didn't really know what else he was supposed to say that. If his doctors wanted Jace to stay a little longer for whatever reason, then Bickslow was sure as hell going to make sure Jace stayed there, no matter how much it was costing him. Bickslow wanted him home just as much as Lucy did, but he cared more about his son actually being well enough to do so. "If he has to stay, then he has to stay. They can do a better job of looking after him than we can here."

"I… I guess you're right…" she mumbled. She almost hated that Bickslow was right, but she hated feeling somewhat glad that Bickslow was even there at all even more. Although Lucy wasn't sure if her beginning to worry just that little bit less was from Bickslow being her voice of reason once again, him just being there at all, or… her comfort food. She wanted to think it was the latter, but she wouldn't even have that if it hadn't been for Bickslow driving all the way across town just to pick it up for her. "I just want him to come home already…" she whispered with a small sigh.

Bickslow sighed as well, and he lifted his arm just to wrap it around Lucy's shoulders and tuck her against his side. "I know you do," he said softly. "So do I." And for the most part, hugging her like that hadn't really meant anything, at least not to Bickslow. It had just been a small bit of comfort that he'd though Lucy needed. But then Lucy dropped her head to rest on her shoulder, and her hesitation to do so wasn't lost on Bickslow, and for the first time in a very long time, things felt normal. Or as close to normal as he was probably going to get.

Lucy noticed it as well. And even just sitting there in silence like that for a while, Lucy found herself becoming more and more glad that she'd messaged Bickslow at all. She'd missed a lot of things lately, but she'd missed that feeling even more – the one where she knew that everything would always work out just because she'd never have to deal with anything alone. And she didn't feel quite so alone right then.

But it wasn't Lucy who said anything about it, despite the urge she felt to do so. It was Bickslow who did, as he blurted out suddenly, "I really missed this." And while he'd admitted it to Jace, only because he'd asked, Bickslow had never once said anything like that to Lucy. He'd kept his mouth shut for the last nearly three years, just because he'd always been under the impression that things were better for _Lucy_ that way. But now that Bickslow knew why Jace had hated him for so long, Bickslow just wasn't sure if keeping silent was the best thing anymore.

Or maybe it still was. He didn't know. Either way, right then, that was the closest he'd been to Lucy in months, and while part of him only wanted to enjoy it as much as he could and just focus on being the comfort Lucy seemed to need, there was a bigger part of him that just wanted to get everything off his chest while he actually could, just in case he never got another chance to do so.

Lucy sat up slowly as Bickslow dropped his arm back to his side. "What… What do you mean?" she whispered.

He shrugged while looking down to his lap. "I mean… I miss how good things used to be between us," he said. "They used to be great, you know? Then everything just… I don't even know _what_ the fuck happened, to be honest. All I know is that I couldn't even talk to you anymore because you were hell-bent on avoiding me or something…"

"That's not entirely true."

"Isn't it, though?"

Lucy lowered her head. Bickslow had a point again, but that time, she couldn't even mad at him for it. "I wasn't trying to avoid you," she admitted quietly. "I was just trying to keep my distance and give you space. That's all."

"That's the same as avoiding, Lucy," Bickslow mumbled.

"W-Well… Well what did you expect me to do?" Even if Bickslow was right, Lucy knew she at least had to make him see things from his perspective. Avoiding him hadn't been easy on her. Not for the most part. "You started seeing someone else, Bicks. I didn't want to get in the middle of that."

Bickslow scoffed. "Yeah, well, there wasn't really anything to get in the middle of, don't worry."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means things were never going to work out with her anyway." Bickslow had known that right from the beginning. It hadn't made breaking up with her any less difficult, though, and the punch from one of Minerva's brothers had been well deserved. He was just waiting for the bruise to show up. Still, talking about his practically non-existent (from his perspective) relationship with his now ex-girlfriend with his ex- _wife_ was just ten kinds of uncomfortable for Bickslow, so he did his best to try and steer the topic somewhere else. "You still didn't need to start avoiding me just because I dated someone else," he mumbled. "I'm pretty sure I didn't disappear off the face of the damn planet when you were dating that douchebag you work with."

Lucy scowled at him. "His name was Jellal, and he's not a… He was nice, okay!" she huffed before adding quietly, "And dating someone for a few weeks is a bit different than dating someone for a few _months_."

 _It was actually nearly six, but that's not important_. "Whatever," Bickslow mumbled. Lucy had to refrain from hitting him repeatedly with a pillow. He could be so stubborn sometimes that it just drove her insane. "My point is, you were the one constant thing I had left and actually looked forward to, and then you just fucking disappeared on me. And I just… I couldn't even figure out just why you hated me so much all of a sudden."

"Bickslow, come on. I could never hate you."

"Yeah, well, you sure made it seem like you did."

Lucy hadn't really known that was the way it had seemed. She knew that her wanting to keep her distance had been obvious to Bickslow, but she'd never known that it was being mistaken for hatred. She'd never known that Bickslow had seen their _friendship_ as a constant thing to look forward to in his life, either. But she was the one to have taken that away, and Lucy was quickly beginning to hate herself for it, mostly because she understood how Bickslow felt.

It was becoming clear to Lucy that a lot of things had gone unsaid over the last few months, and a lot of actions had been misunderstood and their meanings misinterpreted. That had never been Lucy's intention.

"Well… I'm sorry," Lucy said. "I was trying to do right by you. I thought if I… If I kept my distance, then you'd have a better chance of being happy with Minerva."

Bickslow looked up. "Wait, how do you know her name?" Because Bickslow could swear that he'd never actually mentioned Minerva's name anywhere around Lucy.

"…Jace told me?"

He sighed through his nose as he shook his head. "Of course he did," he muttered. Granted, it did make some kind of sense. Jace talked to his mother more than he did him, obviously, and considering Jace had made it clear from the beginning that Minerva wasn't his favourite person… Well, Bickslow could only wonder just what else his son had mentioned to Lucy. "He tell you why he hates me as well? Or why I said he shouldn't stay with me anymore?"

"No…"

"Well, long story short, he ruined a dinner and made a three-year-old cry."

The making a toddler cry part didn't surprise Lucy. But the rest of it… "And the long story?"

For a short moment, Bickslow wondered if he should actually tell Lucy what had happened, but he decided to do so anyway, even if things had been mostly cleared up between himself and Jace. And still, there was that nagging thought at the back of Bickslow's head that told him he really had nothing else to lose at that point so he might as well just get everything out while he could. "Long story…" He sighed again before beginning to explain, "Minerva was over for dinner, Jace was being… Well, he was being a little asshole as usual. I asked him to sit, and he didn't, so I thought I'd try the whole strict parenting thing out. Took his phone and laptop away and told him he'd get them back after dinner. Bad move. He went off at me."

"…I see…" Lucy mumbled. "So what did he say?"

"Ah, well…" Bickslow reached for the bag of donuts that were now cool and pulled off a quarter of it to shove into his mouth. "He called me an asshole to begin with," he mumbled while still chewing. "Then basically went on to say that he was glad we got divorced. Actually, that was what he _did_ say. Told me that I made you miserable and that he always hears you crying, too. Oh, and then he said he wished he wasn't related to me. Great night overall. Ten out of ten."

The snark definitely wasn't lost on Lucy, but it definitely wasn't her focus. Her focus was on what Jace had told Bickslow, and if that was the reason Bickslow had decided he shouldn't have Jace on the weekends anymore, then Lucy could see why. She'd always known that they'd never really gotten on all that well after they'd been divorced, but Lucy had never expected it to be that bad. She'd always just assumed that it was just one hell of a phase. But to now find out that for all that time, _she_ had been the reason for it? Lucy could say with certainty that she hadn't expected that in the slightest.

Lucy just wasn't sure what she was supposed to say to that, though. She didn't know whether to be upset with Jace for saying what he had, or just disappointed with herself for even letting her son see what he supposedly had. She'd always done her best to put on her brave face for him, and to always make sure that he saw her with a smile. She'd wanted to show him that things were perfectly fine the way they were, and that they didn't need to be a perfect family to still be happy (not that they'd ever been perfect to begin with, but in her eyes, it had always been that way). She'd just wanted Jace to see that although Bickslow wasn't living there and that they weren't together, that things could still work out and be normal.

She'd never wanted Jace to see that things weren't as fine (at least not for her) as she'd been trying to make them seem. Because Jace seeing how things really were would make them real, and Lucy had spent a long time trying to convince herself that things really were fine.

But she still couldn't deny any of it. Lucy just didn't think she had it in herself to do that. Things had been better when they'd still been friends and Bickslow had been a constant in her life as well. It hadn't been quite as hard. But the last few months… That had been difficult.

Without a word, Lucy got up from the lounge and was already entering the short hallway that led to the bedrooms before Bickslow could ask where she was going. A moment later, she returned with a small sketchbook and handed it to Bickslow as she sat back down next to him. "I found this the other night," she said softly.

At first, Bickslow thought it might've been one of his old ones that Lucy had wanted to keep when he'd moved out, but then he began flicking through the graphite-covered pages and he quickly realised that it wasn't his at all. "Is this… Jace's?" he wondered aloud. Bickslow knew it wouldn't have been Lucy's, because there wasn't a single artistic bone in her body, so he seemed to already know that it belonged to his son. But before Bickslow could ask why Lucy was showing him that right then, he turned one of the pages, and stopped, already answering his own question before he could ask it. "Huh…"

On the page, was one of his wedding photos. It was the one that Bickslow knew to be Lucy's favourite of all the photos they'd had taken that day. It was the one where, for once, _he_ hadn't been completely oblivious to the photographer's presence, but instead it had been Lucy. It was the one photo from the whole day, where it had been Lucy caught looking at him the way he'd always looked at her.

And Bickslow had always thought he'd been good at portraits. But Jace's recreation of that single photograph put even him to shame, and he couldn't help but wonder just who the fuck had taught the kid how to draw that way, because it certainly hadn't been him. As far as he'd always known, Jace had just never been interested in anything to do with that kind of art. Not past the age of eight, at least.

"The other night, when you came to fix that… That horse _thing_ …"

"Direhorse," Bickslow corrected.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "You asked me if I'd been crying," she continued softly, staring down to her hands as she twisted them together in her lap. "And I had been. Because I'd been staring at that page for half an hour." It had been a mix of not even knowing that her son could draw like that, especially in a way that had reminded her so much of Bickslow, and then just being reminded of how much she missed how simple things had been back then.

Everything had just been so simple, and so easy, and she'd been happy. Sometimes Lucy would give anything to just go back to the way things had been then. Maybe not all the way back to before Jace had been born (at least when he wasn't being a pain the ass), but at least to when things had still been good – before things had started going wrong and when they'd all still been a proper family.

"You're not the only one who misses how things were, Bickslow," Lucy whispered then. She could admit that.

Bickslow still couldn't look up from Jace's drawing. He still had his son's words playing back in his head, just like they had for weeks, and now Lucy's, too. Part of him had wondered if what Jace had said about Lucy – about what _he'd_ done to her – was really true. He'd always suspected it was, because it had made sense in its own strange way, but he'd just never completely believed Jace, either. Believing that Jace was right would mean that he'd fucked up so epically somewhere along the way and had actually failed to see through Lucy for once.

But with what Lucy was saying right then… "So Jace was right," he said softly, more to himself than anyone. "What he said to me about you – what I did. He was right."

Lucy still couldn't deny it. She almost wished she could, but she just couldn't.

Bickslow finally looked up at her, asking, "Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"Because I couldn't!" It was such a stupid question to Lucy. She almost didn't know why Bickslow was even bothering to ask her. "I couldn't tell you that I'd changed my mind," she continued, quieter then. "Things were better after we got divorced. You said so yourself. _I_ said so. I couldn't tell you that I thought it was a mistake, because I know you would've come straight back and then we'd both be miserable like we were before. I didn't want you to be worried about me." And that had been the last thing Lucy wanted.

Bickslow moved quickly, turning on the lounge so he was facing her properly and then holding her face between his hands. "Don't you get it?" he whispered. "I _wanted_ to come back. I only did what I did because I thought that was what _you_ wanted." And Bickslow would admit that those few months they'd spent separated before actually getting divorced had been a good idea. But the only reason he'd ever brought up putting an end to their nearly thirteen-year long marriage was because he'd seen how calm Lucy had become in those few months. He thought he'd been doing the right thing by her. It had never really been for his own benefit, even if he'd enjoyed the time apart at the very beginning. "I _love_ you. I was in love with you when I signed those stupid divorce papers, and I'm probably going to still be in love with you in the afterlife as well. That means I'm _always_ going to be worried about you."

And while it probably felt better for Bickslow to actually be able to tell her that he loves her, Lucy wasn't even going to try and explain how good it felt to hear it. And it wasn't because she'd been wishing for things to end up that way, because she certainly hadn't been. But it was more of a case that she was relieved – relieved to know that she hadn't been alone in how she'd felt. But she also felt just so incredibly _stupid_. So much could've been avoided if they'd just talked to each other, but Lucy was almost inclined to think that that was what had gotten them into that mess in the first place.

And when all Lucy could do was cry, having no idea what to say or even do, Bickslow just wrapped his arms around her to hold her as close as possible, and apologised as many times as he could. He didn't think he'd ever be able to say how sorry he was. Bickslow had come to regret a lot of things over the last few years and months, but giving up on what he had with Lucy and choosing to just walk away was always going to be his biggest regret.

For the most part, neither of them knew what was going to happen next. It was new territory in a way, especially because neither of them had expected ever having that conversation at all. Bickslow, at least, was glad for it though. There'd been things that had needed to be said, and although Bickslow hadn't realised that at first, he knew that now.

Their drinks were cold and forgotten by the time Lucy lifted her head. There were just so many things she wanted to know – like where they were going from there, or what any of it was supposed to mean – but she didn't really want to learn the answers at that exact moment. Part of her was scared in a sense, but another part of her was still only focused on Jace. After all, Jace was essentially part of the reason that Bickslow was there right then.

"It's, um… It's getting late…" she whispered.

Bickslow look up as he dropped his hands to rest on his knees. "Right! Yeah… It is…" He looked around before slowly getting up, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I should probably head home then…"

 _Home_. Had Bickslow said anything else, Lucy wouldn't have thought anything of it. But he'd said _home_ , and that just wasn't sitting right with her. Bickslow's apartment… As nice as it was, it wasn't a home. Bickslow might think so, but Lucy didn't. She'd never really thought that.

His home was where it had always been. Right there in that cramped, two-bedroom apartment that they'd bought together. And even if it had still been a home while Bickslow hadn't been there, Lucy had still always thought it was a better one when he was there.

She reached out to grab Bickslow's hand before he left, and he looked back down just to see Lucy staring down at her lap. She wasn't sure what to say at first, partly because she wasn't entirely sure what she even wanted. But then softly, she said, "You don't need to leave to go home."

"…What?" Bickslow said. He didn't understand what she was trying to say, but he understood that she wanted him to sit back down when she pulled on his hand, so he slowly sank back down onto the lounge next to her. She still wasn't looking up at him – why, Bickslow wasn't even sure – so he pulled his hand free from hers just to gently cup her face between his hands again, tilting her head up so she was facing him finally. "What are you saying?" he asked softly.

She wasn't sure of that, either. Not entirely at least. Her eyes flicked down still in an attempt to avoid looking at him directly as she tried to come up with some kind of answer to his question. "I'm saying… That you don't need to go anywhere to be home," she whispered. "You don't have to leave."

Even if all she'd done was repeat herself, Bickslow seemed to slowly understand what she was trying to say. And while he hadn't been expecting it at all, just like a lot of things that had already happened just in the last hour alone, he was still just so happy to be hearing it, and to be there right then at all.

It was the closest things had felt to normal in _years,_ and Bickslow had almost forgotten what that even felt like. But with Lucy, right then, in that apartment, things felt almost normal. And Bickslow was going to hold onto that feeling for as long as he could.

And quietly then, still with his hands on either side of Lucy's face, he whispered, "Lucy, if you want me to stay, all you have to do is ask."

All Lucy could do was nod, too unsure of herself and of everything else to even give a proper answer. But it was enough of an answer for Bickslow. And almost hesitantly, right after Lucy's eyes finally met his again for just a moment, he leant forward to gently press his lips to hers.

* * *

Morning came far sooner than either of them had wanted. Lucy had been up before Bickslow, tidying up the apartment one last time to make sure everything was perfect for when Jace got back. They ended up leaving together a little after six, just so they had time to stop in somewhere for coffee at the very least – Lucy had been too worried to actually eat anything. The trip itself had mostly been in silence, too, but for once, it hadn't been entirely comfortable. While they'd decided that they'd need to actually talk about things and decide what they each wanted, they'd agreed to wait for a little while. Jace came before both of them, and while he was still healing and recovering, their relationship – whether it came to exist or not – could wait.

Jace's doctor finally signed off and letting him go home though. Lucy had been so relieved that she'd actually cried, much to Bickslow's amusement and Jace's horror. While they were just waiting for a nurse to come and remove his IV line and disconnect everything else, Lucy decided to go get a start on the discharge papers – only after showering her son's forehead and cheek in kisses.

It was just after Lucy left the room though, that Jace turned his attention to his father standing by the end of the bed with his arms crossed. "Weren't you wearing those clothes yesterday afternoon?" he asked suspiciously. Jace could've sworn Bickslow had been wearing the same shirt and jeans the day before.

And, he had been. He'd just put on the first set of clothes he could find when he'd gotten out of bed the night before, and he hadn't been home since. And while it wasn't the first time Bickslow had been caught wearing the same clothes after spending a night somewhere he probably shouldn't have, it was the first time that he'd been stuck having to come up with an excuse for his lack of wardrobe change.

"It's called a washing machine," he ended up saying. It wasn't even a lie, either. Lucy had ended up washing his clothes before he'd even gotten up that morning.

Jace merely raised an eyebrow at him. "Right… Okay…"

Not long after that, Jace was finally sent off home with his arm still in a cast for his fractured wrist, a prescription for the best kind of pain killers, and a list of instructions from the nurse on how to properly clean and re-apply the bandages to the still healing scar across his stomach.

For the most part, it had just ended up being a lazy day with nothing but movies, napping, and actual edible food (at least from Jace's perspective). By the time Jace called it a night, Bicklow had just been helping Lucy put the clean dishes away, and Jace just hadn't really thought much of it. Admittedly, he'd found it a little odd that his dad had hung around for the day, and even odder still that his parents hadn't actually been completely ignoring each other, but Jace had just put it down to them trying to get along for his benefit since he was finally home.

But it was in the morning, however, that Jace walked out of his bedroom, sleepily rubbing his face with his good hand, at the exact same time that Bickslow was walking out of his mother's room. They both just stood there in the short hall for a moment, frozen and staring at each other. Neither of them had been expecting to see each other right then – well, Bickslow had expected to see Jace at some point, but Jace certainly hadn't expected to be seeing Bickslow at all.

"What are you doing?" Jace asked.

"I… Uh… Um… I was… Um…" Bickslow was, quite frankly, almost mortified. His son catching him in his boxers at six-thirty in the morning was really not what he'd wanted to happen. "I was just uh…" He shook his head then and threw his hands up in defeat then, letting out a sigh. "Honestly, I got nothin'." He really had no excuse to give the kid.

But, Jace could only groan and cringe as he put two-and-two together. "God, really, Dad?! Gross." As far as Jace could tell, there was really only one reason why Bickslow would be there that early in the morning, and in his underwear no less. And it was one reason that Jace really, _really_ did not want to think about. Suddenly though, Bickslow having been wearing the same clothes as he had on Sunday, as well as spending the rest of the day there with them made all too much sense.

Still though… Jace had to kind of admit that there were worse people than each other that his parents could sleep with. He just hoped he wasn't going to be getting any awkward sit-downs with them anytime soon. Or worse, _siblings_.

* * *

 _ **A/Ns:** Yeah... It's kind of... Okay, it's kind of an odd chapter. I say I didn't edit, but I did take out an entire scene (granted it was only 1k words, but still). It wasn't important in the slightest so that's why I cut it out. I know a lot of the whole Bickslow/Lucy drama was a bit rushed, and not a lot of it makes that much sense (at least from my perspective), but for the most part, this chapter was about seeing things from Lucy's perspective. Most of the story was from Bickslow's side of things, and there was a general theme of 'things going unsaid' in this story, so yeah, I needed to give Lucy a bit of love for this chapter. _

_Anyway! There will be an epilogue. And not to worry, Minerva does get a happy ending... Just not with Bickslow. Honestly though, I ended up shipping Bixerva (yes, I called it that) way too hard from this. The only reason it existed was because I needed someone to pair him with for part of the story and I just thought Minerva suited him well somehow. I doubt I'll ever write anything that is strictly Bixerva. Pretty much these days, if it's not BixLu, BixCo, CoLu, or CoLuBix, then I'm not even going to bother lol. I love my children, okay? (Did I mention I have a CoLuBix one-shot I'm working on that isn't even part of the 100 Kinks list? One day I'll finish it...)_

 _For now though, I hope you've enjoyed this! This is set up to be more of a final chapter than the epilogue is. You'll see why when I finally write and post it._


	9. summer (epilogue)

_**Quick A/N:** Sorry if anyone got multiple email updates for this chapter. I was trying to sort out an issue with the update date not being... well, updated. And then as far as I could tell, email updates weren't going out again so... Yeah. _

* * *

Bickslow wrapped up his last art class for the afternoon with a stretch of his arms above his head. He'd been teaching two classes a day for the last month, just as he did every time summer came around. As much as he loved teaching the classes, it was so tiring, even when each one was only two hours at most. Bickslow had never been able to figure out how Lucy could teach class after class for six hours a day, five days a week.

Still, that year, Bickslow had an extra person to help him out. Granted, her hands were so little that she didn't really help much anyway. But she brought in customers and students, so that was always good, even if the only students she brought in were middle aged women who spent more time daydreaming than actually painting. There seemed to be a thing about men holding babies that people found attractive. Bickslow didn't quite understand it, but he sure as hell abused it.

He brought his arms back down and then looked down to the four-month-old sitting peacefully in the carrier on his chest. She was always so quiet during classes. Bickslow almost thought she was his best student. He began rinsing off the brushes he'd used for his demonstration as the rest of his actual students for his summer course began tidying up their stations.

"So how do you think I went today, huh, Summer?" he asked his daughter quietly, glancing down as he picked up another brush to rinse off and then dry on some paper towel. "You think I did alright? I think I went alright."

Naturally, she didn't respond. Instead she just kept looking around, mostly watching his hand move from one side of the table where he kept the brushes and then to the jar of water and back to the paper towel.

His afternoon course for the summer was strictly for watercolour work. He'd never particularly enjoyed (or been very good at) doing anything to do with watercolours. Not until he'd dated Minerva, at least. But while he still preferred his carving and etchings, and his favourite method was always going to be just sitting down with a piece of paper and a graphite pencil, Bickslow hadn't been able to deny that he'd grown to like using watercolours occasionally. He hadn't really started getting into it until after they'd broken up and he'd gotten back with Lucy, but it had been nearly two years since then, and Bickslow could say that he'd definitely taught himself a lot in that time.

He'd be the first to admit that he wasn't an expert. He didn't even think he was that good at it, not after seeing what Minerva could do with the paints. But he'd still gotten to a point where he thought he was good enough to run a short course on it. He was only doing six classes for it anyway, one class a week, and he'd just finished his fourth. And for the most part, Bickslow had only intended his class to be for kids anyway, because that was what most of his classes were for. But then, after bringing Summer along to his second week class, just because Lucy had wanted to take a day off to catch up on cleaning and reading, Bickslow had had more than a few last minute sign-ups. Mostly from the mothers of the parents he'd already been teaching. Bickslow had never really cared either way though. It was a basic class that was mostly focused on using household objects – like cotton swabs, plastic wrap for patterns, and even white crayons to draw patterns on the page that would show up when the colour didn't stick to it. The class was suited to anyone, really.

One of his younger students came up to Bickslow's station just as he was unclipping Summer from the harness to lift her out gently. The child, whose name Bickslow knew to be Deakin, held up one of his dried paintings from the class. It was the second one they'd done that afternoon – a simple flower that had taught them more about what they could actually do with certain brushes. "Did I do it right?" Deakin asked shyly.

Bickslow took the page from him as he moved Summer to one arm. "This is great!" he said. Even if it wasn't though, he still would've said it was great. Still though, Deakin had shown to have talent. It wasn't the first time Bickslow had taught him. "You wanna put this on the wall?"

Deakin nodded after a moment, and then Bickslow was turning to carry it over to the wall he'd covered in sheets of corkboard just to display everyone's work every year. It was already almost completely covered from all of his summer classes – the kids were really fond of putting their work up on display when they were proud of it. Finding a relatively free place on the wall, Bickslow stepped back and asked, "What about here?"

Deakin nodded again, and Bickslow handed him the bucket of pins and his artwork back so he could pin it up on the wall himself. Deakin smiled proudly and Bickslow couldn't help but grin.

"Ah, perfect," he said. "Good work today, Deakin. You can tell your mum that she did good work as well." Although, Bickslow knew for a fact that his mother had barely even put three petals on the page. She'd spent most of her time staring at him with Summer. "Now go on, rinse the brushes out and you can go. I'll see you next week."

"Bye, Bicks!" Deakin said, and then rushed back to the desks in the middle of the third-floor floor to continue tidying up his station.

Bickslow left the rest of his class to tidy up in peace as he made for the stairs to head back down to the shop level. He only did his best to avoid the doting (and mostly single) mothers who came up to him and cooed over Summer, although some of them, he couldn't get away from. But Bickslow didn't make it to the ground floor, where his actual shop was, before he ran into someone on the second floor and he froze in his spot for a moment.

It was Minerva, looking up and towards him from where she stood next to Jace. He'd taken up almost permanent residence at one of the booths next to the railing and stairs. Most people knew not to sit there unless they wanted to be stared down by a menacing teenager. But right then, Jace looked just as scared as Bickslow felt. Bickslow didn't doubt that Jace hadn't really wanted to be stuck talking to the woman, so as Bickslow's feet finally moved and he carried himself towards them, Jace took the opportunity to pick up his headphones and laptop from the table in front of him and then quietly slink away.

 _Damn traitor_. But, really, if Bickslow could avoid Minerva, he would be running in the opposite direction as well. The last time Bickslow had seen her was when he'd been breaking up with her. And that… Well, that really hadn't gone all that well. But since then, Minerva hadn't visited the shop once, so it was definitely a surprise for at least Bickslow.

Minerva smiled weakly at him for a moment as she folded her arms across her chest. "Well, I wasn't exactly expecting _that_ ," she laughed almost meekly, nodding to the squirming infant in Bickslow's hold.

Bickslow smiled back for a second as he tried to wrangle Summer back into a somewhat stable grip. "Yeah, well… Neither was I, to be honest," he mumbled. He was happy about her, undeniably so, but she'd been just a little bit of a surprise. After having so much trouble trying to get pregnant again when Jace had been younger, Lucy finding out that she was after really just a few months of actually being back together had been a bit of a shock. But it had been a really, _really_ great surprise.

"She yours?" Minerva asked. Bickslow nodded. "She's gorgeous. What's her name?"

"Summer."

"That's perfect," she whispered.

"Yeah… Yeah, it is," Bickslow agreed. They'd originally planned on calling her Lily, but then Lucy became set on the name Summer somewhere around the last few weeks of her pregnancy, and it stuck. He looked around quickly and did a double-take on the row bookshelves standing in the middle of the room, just to see Jace's head quickly disappearing behind the corner of one. Bickslow couldn't help but roll his eyes as he looked back to Minerva, right before deciding to sit down on the booth lounge just in front of them. "So, uh… How… How have you been?" he asked then. "I really wasn't expecting to ever see you again, to be honest…"

Minerva shrugged as she sat down on the other side of the lounge. "I was in town and I needed to pick up some more paper, so I thought I'd come here to get it…" she answered. She'd also wanted to at least see how Bickslow had been doing since they last talked, but for the most part, she'd really just been there to get some more paper. Bickslow had always had the widest range of supplies. "But I've been good. Got engaged a little while ago."

"Wow, congratulations, I guess. I'm glad things are going well for you."

She nodded. "Me too, and thank you," she whispered. "But what about you? How have you been?"

Bickslow's first thought was that things had been great. Because they had been. He'd moved back in with Lucy a few months after Jace had been let out of hospital, Lucy had gotten pregnant a few more months after that. Then they'd sold the old apartment and managed to buy a townhouse a little closer to where Lucy worked in the city, just so they had room for everyone and everyone – although the only reason they'd managed to buy the place at all was because it had been owned by the parent of one of Bickslow's loyal customers, and knowing that he'd had another baby on the way, he'd offered to sell it to Bickslow for less than half of what it was even worth (he'd really just wanted to get rid of it for the most part). And then Summer had come along at the end of March, and Bickslow really couldn't be happier at that point. Granted, it had been a bit of a rocky start with Lucy, once they'd actually decided that they wanted to give things another go, but it had ended up working out. He wouldn't be there at all if they hadn't.

But still, Bickslow didn't want to tell Minerva about all of that. He couldn't quite keep himself from smiling like a damn idiot as he nodded and said, "I've been really good."

"That's good to hear."

Minerva didn't need to ask who it was Bickslow had ended up with after they'd broken up, because she seemed to already have a feeling who it was. And that didn't really surprise her, either. She'd always had a feeling things wouldn't work out with Bickslow. She'd hoped for the best, of course, but she'd been able to tell that his heart hadn't really been it. Not like hers had been, at least.

Still, as horribly, and just a little unexpectedly as things had ended between them, she'd still moved on, so she could quite honestly say that she was glad to hear that things in Bickslow's life were going well.

Besides, if Bickslow hadn't broken up with her when he had, she wouldn't have finally decided to move out of the city so she could live in a quiet street and send Zara to one of the best pre-schools in the suburbs, and she wouldn't have met Gajeel, either. Minerva was happy with how things had turned out. She had a house, and a really great fiancé, and her daughter was so in love with Gajeel already that it just warmed her heart. She also had a cat, but, well… The cat had come with the boyfriend.

But, since she'd only been stopping in for some paper, and since actually talking to Bickslow had been more of an afterthought than anything, Minerva thought she should just wrap things up to be on her way. She'd left her daughter and fiancé with her brothers while they were in town, so god knows how much trouble they'd already gotten into that afternoon alone.

But Minerva didn't get a chance to say that before Bickslow cleared his throat and began, "Look, I just wanted to… I wanted to apologise." And technically, he'd done it before, but he wanted to do it again because he'd never really been okay with the way he'd let things end with Minerva. "I'm just… I'm sorry for how things went between us," he said softly, looking down to Summer still wriggling in his lap. "I know that I kind of… led you along. I feel terrible for that, I really do. And I know it's really no consolation now, or even important at all, I guess, but I did really like you. And I loved spending time with you as well, but I just… I was never…"

"Bickslow, it's fine. I understand," she whispered. She'd understood it the first time she'd said all of it too.

Bickslow only nodded.

Finally then, only after a moment, Minerva slid out from her seat on the lounge and stood with a sigh. Bickslow looked back up just in time to see her give a gentle smile, one more genuine than her first one. "Well, I left Zara and my fiancé with my brothers, so I should probably go rescue them," she joked lightly. Even Bickslow had to smirk slightly, mostly because he couldn't quite tell who was going to be needing the rescuing. "It was good seeing you, though. It was good seeing Jace as well. He looks a lot more like you now. He'd be, what, seventeen now?"

Bickslow scoffed. The fact Jace was ending up more and more like him every day honestly just terrified him. That, and he was getting older, too. He was almost done with high school. After the summer, he'd be a senior. "Eighteen in December," Bickslow said.

"Almost out of diapers then."

That time, Bickslow did laugh.

They finally said their goodbyes to each other after that, and Minerva turned to head back down the nearby stairs to where the main shop floor and exit were. Jace managed to come out from wherever he'd retreated to a few moments later, taking his seat again and putting his things back on the table. When Summer reached out for his arm, vaguely grabbing in his direction, Jace just moved his hand closer so his sister could be entertained by his hand for a few moments.

"So… That didn't look too painful," he mused. "I expected it to be more painful."

Bickslow sighed. "I expected it to be painful as well." But, well, it hadn't been that bad at all. "What was she talking to you about?" he asked.

Jace shrugged then. "Just asked me how I was and if you were here today." It had been an awkward as all hell conversation, as short as it had been. The only consolation had been that Jace had known it wouldn't last very long anyway, just because he knew his dad would've been coming back downstairs shortly. Jace knew exactly when Bickslow's classes started and finished… Hell, he was there enough to have figured it all out.

"Right…" Bickslow mumbled. He checked the time on his watch quickly to see that it was already twenty past. That meant Lucy would be there soon to take Summer back home for the day. Passing the infant to his son momentarily, Bickslow finally got back up and then took Summer back from Jace. "Well, Mum's gonna be here soon," he began, only a hint of a smirk on his lips as he continued, "I take it you won't be coming back home until later, not with Caleb working tonight."

Jace's face quickly became a light shade of pink, and Bickslow couldn't help but chuckle as his son just put on his headphones and went back to his laptop. It hadn't taken Bickslow very long to realise that his son had grown to be just a little fond of the new assistant he'd hired down in the store. Jace had started making a point of staying at the warehouse when Caleb was working, and no matter how many times Jace had said _'he's just a cool guy and he's fun to hang out with,'_ Bickslow still knew better.

Besides, he wasn't doing his job if he wasn't embarrassing the fuck out of his kid and his clear-as-day crush. Whether or not Jace cared to even admit anything to himself, however… Well, that was out of Bickslow's territory, and Bickslow had zero intentions of crossing that boundary. Jace was nearly an adult (sort of), so Bickslow liked to treat him like one most of the time. It certainly helped that he had Summer to dote on instead.

Lucy arrived just a few minutes later, after Bickslow had headed back upstairs to finish tidying up after his class. Most of his students had already packed up and left, though when Bickslow returned with Summer still held in his arms, he definitely noticed the somewhat annoying sighs of his _older_ students. Lucy finding him upstairs definitely got them leaving though, much to Bickslow's amusement.

"Ah. Now I see why you like bringing her to work with you so much," Lucy said as the last of the women quickly grabbed their purses and left.

Bickslow shrugged. "What can I say? My classes are open to everyone. There's no sign saying they can't just sign up to stare at a wonderfully attractive man and his adorable daughter."

Lucy rolled her eyes. The man was insane. But for the most part, it was a good insane. Also, she certainly wasn't going to try and argue with him about staring at him when he was holding Summer. It made her all happy and tingly, and that was always a good feeling.

She held her arms out for Summer when she met Bickslow in the middle of the room, and she quickly pulled her daughter in to kiss her tiny cheek. "Mummy missed you!" Lucy cooed. "Did you have a good day with Daddy?"

"Well, she only cried twice, so that's a new record. And she fell asleep on Jace during my morning class," Bickslow said. She wasn't a morning baby, as Bickslow had quickly realised, so he usually just had Jace watch her when he had work to do in the morning.

"Aww, I wish I could've seen it."

"It was pretty damn cute," he chuckled. Jace hadn't been too pleased at the time, naturally, but he'd survived. It wasn't the first time his sister had fallen asleep when he'd been holding her. Most of the time, that was the only way they could get Summer down when she just didn't want to go down for a nap. Ducking his head slightly, Bickslow kissed the top of Lucy's forehead before he softly said, "Hi, though. Did you have a good day?"

She smiled and nodded, only stepping back to take a seat on one of the chairs Bickslow used for his classes. "I did. I managed to get all the washing done, and then I sat outside and read for a little while." The yard, for the most part, had been the selling point for the house (other than how cheap it had been, of course). It was almost entirely paved apart from the planters and garden beds around the perimeter, up against the connecting townhouses. It was beautiful, really, and Lucy's favourite thing to do was sit outside with a good book and some lemonade.

"Sounds like you had a pretty relaxing day then. Well, apart from the laundry."

"I did," Lucy said. "But… Question…"

Bickslow glanced up from where he'd returned to his own station and had started packing away his paints and brushes. "Uh-huh?"

"Was that Minerva I just saw walking out downstairs?"

"Oh. Uh… Yeah, it was, actually."

"And?"

"And…" He shrugged. "We talked for a few minutes, I guess." Bickslow supposed that was what Lucy had been waiting for. Granted, he knew that she wasn't going to be worried about anything, because she really had no reason to be, but it was more to do with curiosity than anything. "She was here to pick up some paper or something, I think. Then I ran into her downstairs and we, you know, just caught up for a little bit."

And, that really was all Lucy had wanted to know. "Is she doing well?" she asked.

"Yeah, she is. She's engaged now."

"Oh. Well, good for her." She'd still never met Minerva, but it was still pleasing to hear. Standing up and adjusting her hold on Summer, Lucy walked slowly over to where Bickslow was still tidying up his own workstation in the room. "So are you ready to go home? Or do you need to stay for a little bit longer."

"I've just got to tidy up things in here and get everything away, and then I'm good to go," he said.

Lucy nodded. "I might go see what Jace is up to then. Just come find me when you're ready to leave." And, she was about to turn to go find her son, but then she stopped, and walked around to the other side of the station to where Bickslow was. She lifted her hand to just rest lightly on the side of his cheek, getting him to look towards her, and was then standing on her toes for a moment to softly press a kiss to his lips. "I love you, by the way." She'd said it before, naturally, but she still liked saying it whenever she could.

Bickslow smiled softly at her. "I know you do. I love you, too."

* * *

 **A/Ns:** _And we made it! It's been a little over a year since I started posting this, but at that point, I'd already had the first few chapters done anyway. Still, it's finally complete! I'm super excited to finally have this one finished._

 _The epilogue was set a couple of years after the last chapter, if that wasn't already clear enough. Everyone got their happy ending, just like I promised. And yes, the BixLu had another baby because I just really, really wanted to write Bickslow teaching an art class with his baby. There's a channel on youtube called 'Jay Lee Watercolor Painting' that pretty much solidifed the whole idea. He does a lot of watercolour specific videos where he has his baby with him, and honestly, it's adorable as hell._

 _Anyway! I want to say thank you to everyone who read this, and especially to those who reviewed. I know this wasn't anyone's favourite story, and it's certainly not my best (I'm not sure what my best is, to be honest), but it was still fun to write. This one was different from my usual stories, so I think that was what made it so enjoyable for me to work on. Still, thank you all again._


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